Mass Formation, Where Did Meaning Go?

Quite possibly the best hour for you to spend for this, or maybe a decade of years. 

Just ignore your Tucker Carlson bias (whatever that may be or not to be), Desmet does all the talking. 

The book is on order. 

Every Love Story Is A Ghost Story - Biography Of David Foster Wallace

 The obligatory other review that goes into much more detail. 

Being  a "mostly out" person blessed with depression and anxiety, this book hits somewhat close to home on a personal level. I say "blessed" because anxiety and depression force you to stop and smell the "excrement" (bad stuff) of our existence, rather than skating on by.

On Wallace; 

He was familiar with his anxiety and may even have associated it with depression, but this was a more intense version of whatever he had routinely dealt with in high school; it was as if some switch in him had been flipped. He felt despair and thought of killing himself. He held on for a few weeks, trying to white-knuckle his way back to being himself.

Up to a "serendipitous" observation of a TV show that talked about panic attacks when I was 22, I just thought I was "crazy", and it was just getting worse as I increasingly isolated myself "just in case" an attack would happen ... and then of course, they started happening when I was alone. "Fearing fear" is a bad hole to fall into. 

We are all different, so my experience is not the same as David's or anyone else's. Similarities? Sure. If you have it, see someone ... a pastor, a therapist, a psychiatrist, even just a family doctor. The medications work, at least they did for me to some extent, as they did for Wallace. As much as to are compelled to, don't isolate, and don't self medicate. 

 A bit like having brain surgery, seizures, and lots of meds to try to prevent more seizures. (1.5 years since my last seizure, a new record! The previous record was 1 year). 

The famous quote goes something like "No man ever steps into the same river twice, since it is not the same river, and he is not the same man". (life, and rivers are flows, not static "things")  Prayer Works. Mindfulness works. DBT works. Exercise works. Forced exposure to fears works. Some combination of all of them works best. "Results will vary, Past Results are no Guarantee of Future Results". 

If it wasn't for fear of Hell, suicide quite likely have happened in my case in my early 20's. I believe suicide is a sin, what I'm not so sure about is if it is a case where we really "make a choice" ... if we believe in Christ, it seems likely that he will understand and forgive even taking "our" life (which is really his)

One thing clear about Wallace is that he was not a Christian: 

Faith was something he could admire in others but never quite countenance for himself. He liked to paraphrase Bertrand Russell that there were certain philosophical issues he could bear to think about only for a few minutes a year and once told his old Arizona sponsor Rich C. that he couldn’t go to church because “I always get the giggles.”

Like many "geniuses" he was too smart for God. I put genius in quotes because I firmly believe that as humans, we can know nothing about everything, or everything about nothing. Those that get the "genius" moniker are very. exceptionally deep in a specific area (literature/writing for Wallace), or so exceptionally wide that they are very shallow in most areas. 

The American generation born after, say, 1955 is the first for whom television is something to be lived with, not just looked at. Our parents regard the set rather as the Flapper did the automobile: a curiosity turned treat turned seduction. For us, their children, TV’s as much a part of reality as Toyotas and gridlock. We quite literally cannot “imagine” life without it.

That is my generation (born in 1956). For a lot of reasons, mass media, especially TV, movies, internet, video games, sports, etc never really grabbed me. I'm just not drawn to mindless entertainment for some strange reason.  

Wallace saw that shallowness of consumerist, entertainment addicted, and addicted in general America and thought that writing a really hard book on purpose ("Infinite Jest") was his mission. As very much an addict himself, he knew of what he spoke.  His alcohol and marijuana addictions nearly killed him. AA was a huge help to him and he became a faithful attendee of recovery meetings, and pushed the envelope of the "anonymous" part in his writing. 

He did however maintain a lifelong addiction to nicotine, smoked and chewed, and strangely, TV ... often 10-13 hours a day. He was also at least a borderline sex addict with a long stream of shallow sexual affairs.

As the culture collapsed into the anecdote and sound bite, Infinite Jest was one of the few books that seemed to anticipate the change and even prepare the reader for it. It suggested that literary sense might emerge from the coming cultural shifts, possibly even meanings too diffused to see before.

Jest was published in 1996, the cultural collapse has went from sound bites to Twitter, FB, YouTube, binge watching NetFlix, and Tik Tok. 

Wallace and Jest may be the poster child for why "The Matter With Things" is critical to understanding our time.  Wallace was the prophet of shallow fragmentation, hopefully McGilcrest is the prophet of deep unification. 

The Coddling Of the American Mind

 https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2018/09/universities-and-the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/

I linked to a review rather than the book this time. I L O V E D the book! I consider it the 2nd important book of the year after "Suicide of the West" both are critical ... if you are more left / academic, read this one, otherwise Suicide if you can only do one, BUT, you kinda owe it to yourself to read them both!

They coin the term "safetyism" and they use the well known peanut allergy example. To oversimplify, it young kids get peanut exposure when infants, SOME (a small number) will have a reaction that is concerning but not life threatening. HOWEVER, by being "safe", we have RADICALLY increased the number of children with very serious peanut allergies , so a LARGER number is exposed to severe reactions up to and including death. By "trying to be safe" we create a larger problem.

This is one of the problems of mans greater ability to "take action" -- preventing forest fires is similar. We prevent them for a long time, and then when one breaks out, it is catastophic. Many of the plants in certain ecosystems REQUIRE regular fire in order for their seeds to germinate!

There is quite a long list of these sorts of issues ... the book "The Black Swan" and "Unfragile" are referenced in "coddling", and cover these issues in more detail.

For the really politically ideological, on page 216 the authors find it necessary to testify that "neither of us has ever voted for a Republican for congress or the presidency"! Essentially, one author is an avowed centrist, the other identifies as "left" -- a "centrist" in current woke America  academia is a rare thing all on its own! What they want to have is NOT a "political book" -- their purpose is the save the university along with a few young lives from depression, anxiety, addiction and suicide.

I STRONGLY recommend this book! In summary, it's points that resonated with me are:

1. We are greatly harming our young by preventing them from learning through normal youthful errors and social development through "free play". We don't know if this is even "recoverable" -- we strongly need to get kids out playing with each other and away from the screens! 
2. The universities are teaching three great untruths ... 
1. That which does not kill you makes you weaker 
2. trust your feelings. 
3. Life is a battle between good people and evil people. The picture below shows a nice chart from page 263 with these untruths and the proper ancient wisdom to answer them. 
3. Chapter 2 is devoted to how the great untruths lead to living life via "emotional reasoning" -- I feel anxious, therefore something must be happening "out there" that justifies my anxiety! (Always trust your feelings). This is what is known in psychology as a "cognitive distortion", and the very successful treatment approach of "Cognitive Behavioural Therapy" has been devoted to rooting out these thinking errors 
4. If we are to have a prayer of recovery, nearly ALL of our universities need to sign up for something like "The Chicago Statement"  the FOUNDATION of a university is free expression, civil dialogue, ability to air ALL points of view, ESPECAILLY those that are not popular and even abhorrent to groups of people. Words ARE NOT violence! We need to get over that great untruth! 

There is no doing a book like this justice in a short blog post. READ IT! If you really can’t, this Atlantic article gives the jist. The following picture is a great summary of a core of the book.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Religion and Politics

 The Righteous Mind, highly recommended!

Read and blogged on in 2012, but some recent reading caused me to move it forward to this blog. 

For people with a conservative bent, a lot of this book will be "didn't everyone know this already"? But for folks of the liberal bent -- like Haidt, although his research for this book migrated him to what he sees as "moderate", it will be something of a struggle.

Sadly, I'm sure that Haidt is due to discover that his observations about human nature may be hyper proven as the liberal establishment punishes him for his heresy of using actual science to point out some fairly obvious things about human nature that would seem to indicate that conservatives are not exclusively just "stupid and evil".

First, we are not rational beings, we are RATIONALIZING beings. The book carries on  the excellent rider/elephant analogy from "The Happiness Hypothesis" and builds off it. The Rider is best seen as the Press Secretary for the elephant -- the elephant does something or "leans" in some direction and the rider dutifully develops a case for the elephant. Humans developed into "hive creatures" (like bees) that could specialize labor and cooperate without all having to be related. Morality is the "wetware" that we use to create and enforce the rules to do that -- our "rider" (consciousness) was created so that our "elephants" (subconscious) could operate this way.

The Six Moral Senses:

1. Care/Harm
2. Liberty/Oppression
3. Fairness/Cheating
4. Loyalty/Betrayal
5. Authority/Subversion
6. Sanctity/Degradation

Liberals tend to be very heavily focused on #1 ... although interestingly, conservatives seem to "care" almost as much, they just don't "care" to the exclusion of all other moral senses. On #2, liberals and libertarians are somewhat close -- although liberals see corporate power as much worse and "oppressive" than government power, which they have a hard time even equating with oppression.

On #3, liberals think of "equality" and completely forget about proportionality -- or Karma. One of the huge problems in cooperation is the "free rider problem". Haidt covers this and why it is impossible to have cooperation without "punishment" (sanctions) against free riders.

Liberals are nearly blind (or claim to be) on 4,5 and 6. It turns out that when tested, the "moral modules" for even Sanctity are there and working in the liberal brain just fine -- they just don't want to admit it because in their view it seems "less enlightened" to admit that degrading things are degrading.

I believe that this book is an EXCELLENT base to at least attempt to open some lines of communication between liberals and conservatives, but I suspect that Haidt is in for a shock -- maybe somewhat equivalent to the shock that Edward O Wilson wrote "Sociobiology" back in the '70s.

The "divine faith" of liberals is that there is no God and man is an infinitely malleable blank slate. While proving that there is no god (or that there is) is not going to happen, it is scientifically known that man is NOT a blank slate, and at least in the "next few millennia" not likely to be improved upon much. Wilson was trashed for stating the basic outline of what a "human nature" was likely to be, now here comes Haidt with some fairly solid research showing what it actually is.

As Wilson outlined in "Consilience", the more science moves forward, the more we begin to see the fact of an intricate and complex human that is no less difficult to mold to our desires than ecologists are realizing the ecology of the planet is. We are each little ecosystems honed by selection (or created by God) to interact within the the planetary and social constructs that we are born with and into.

Reality has never been very much of interest to the Progressive Project -- now about 100 years in, with all of the progressive nations facing economic demise, even the social sciences start to point out that reality is not in line with the progressive vision. My guess is that the response is not likely to be very reasoned, but rather very emotional.

Influence, The Psychology Of Persuatioin

 I looked around for a review that I thought would just "stick to the facts" rather than be an introduction to the book as a marketing training tool. (which it certainly can be). I failed, so I could not avoid doing some work as much as I hate it! 

In the introduction, Cialdini presents himself has the "perpetual patsy",  so he decided to become  an experimental social psychologist, to understand how "the compliance professionals" -- the marketers, salesmen, politicians, store clerks, etc were getting him to do what they wanted, vs what he wanted.

There are thousands of variations, but they are categorized in this book under six: 

1. Consistency -- If we just agreed to one proposition as correct, how can we claim that this same/similar one is incorrect? Don't you go to the doctor? If you do, how can you not "follow the science" on Covid? 
   
   
2. Reciprocity -- I scratched your back, certainly you will scratch mine. We have all seen the "free" mailing labels arrive, with a request for a donation. It is against human nature not to donate. 
   
   
3. Social Proof - "Everyone's doing it". "A majority of people say" ... etc, etc. From time immemorial, "following the crowd" has generally been an adaptive shortcut. That tendency is often used against us, and modern mass media and the internet only make it easier to apply. 
   
   
4. Authority - You have got to follow "the experts", or "the science", don't you? If they say that two weeks of shutdown will put Covid behind us, or if you take the vaccine, you won't get Covid, you would be a FOOL to not agree! From listening to your parents as a child, or the teacher in school, the urge to believe authority is strong, and VERY dangerous! 
   
   Consider the "Milgram Experiment" where all of the people that were "teachers" were willing to give the subjects lethal or potentially lethal shocks under the direction of "authority". 
   
   A little remembrance of Jonestown where 900 people "followed the leader" may be of interest as well,
   
   We all know the most popular cigarette with doctors is Camel! 
   
   
   
   
   
   Doctors nearly never get things wrong: https://bilber99.blogspot.com/2006/04/elbow-ec.html 
   
   
5. Liking - Look at that pretty girl next to that car! I think I really like that car! As one woman said about a referendum "It's a real tough decision. They've got big stars speaking  for it, and they've got big stars speaking against it, You don't know how to vote!!" If the person I like on TV, the star of my sports team, or my friend at the club is voting for hio, how can I go wrong? 
   
   
6. Scarcity - This is the last Cutlass Ciera in the country! The production line is stopped! You have GOT to buy this one RIGHT NOW! Sadly, we often put a very high value on something that we had always had plenty of, but is now scarce (or higher priced). 

As I said, there are thousands of variations on these, We have met the enemy, and the enemy is human nature. We are limited creatures, so when certain "programs" are triggered in our brains, we tend to operate on autopilot like mama turkey. Cialdini uses the example of a certain "cheap" made by a healthy baby turkey that the mother responds to and provides care. Sick/deformed chicks don't make the cheap, and are ignored. If the researcher puts a stuffed skunk in the nest that makes the cheap, it gets care. 

Humans are loaded with the same sort of "program triggers" ... we require them in order to deal with our complex world. If we can avoid thinking, we do -- and modern marketing, media, politicians, and human predators of all types use them to great advantage. 

You have been warned. 

Maps Of Meaning

 https://www.deployyourself.com/book-review/maps-of-meaning-jordan-b-peterson/

I'd recommend following the link for a better review of the book than I'm likely to do 

I'd also recommend reading "12 Rules For Life" and to a lesser degree "Beyond Order, 12 More Rules for Life"

In any case, this book would be down the list -- not because it is "bad", but primarily because it is much longer than it needs to be to get it's points across. 

From the linked:

The Basic Structure Of Myths

Myths from different places of the world have some common characteristics because of shared human nature. Whether it is the story of Homer’s Odyssey, the Passion of the Christ, stories of creation in Mesopotamia or Egypt, they all have one commonality – the journey of a brave hero and his triumphant return from the unknown.

The primal forces of nature form the basis of most myths. They represent the unknown, from wherein all life originates. Its creative and destructive nature is mostly represented as feminine. For example, according to the Mesopotamian myth of creation, the unknown is a ferocious Mother Dragon Tiamat from whose pieces the cosmos was created. In Sumerian creation myth, the sea goddess Nammu birthed the sky and the earth.

The feminine, often the mother, is portrayed as either ‘great’, or ‘terrible’, where the terrible unknown is shown in forms of an evil monster, a stepmother, or a storm; the great, or promising unknown is often characterized by a fairy godmother, a treasure or a magical place.

In mythology, the opposite of the Great and Terrible Mother, is the Great and Terrible Father. The father represents the structured, known territories of culture that man has built for protection. The father is most often represented as an old, wise king – great when he is just, protective and wise, and terrible when he is oppressive, tyrannical, or evil.

Finally, the hero of the story is the brave explorer, trapped between the unknown forces of the Mother and Father – or nature and culture. He is the one who fights the negatives of nature and culture and wins by bringing out the positives, proving to be a role model for humans.

We live by "stories", the more profound and meaningful reach the status of "myth". Are they "true"? Often not in the sense of scientific or legal "evidence", but perhaps more "true" in the sense that they speak to our nature and are much more meaningful than a listing of "facts".

We tend to look at science as "true", yet it as well is based on a faith narrative that goes something like "The universe was randomly created in a "Big Bang". Luckily for us, 100s if not thousands of physics variables just happened to be "set" (randomly) to values that allowed our existence. Even better, there happened to be a planet in the "Goldilocks zone" (not too hot, not too cold), and "somehow" life happened. That "somehow" would appear to be vanishingly unlikely, however it retains a place in scientific mythology."

"Maps" makes an attempt to explain more about "universal myths" than you really wanted to know. The excerpt above gives a flavor, the not so long linked review is probably all you need rather than reading the book. 

The Ruminator, Mindfulness

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/practical-mindfulness/202002/one-word-stops-ruminating-the-future?amp=

For most of my life, in homage to famous movie character, "The Terminator", I would be better called "The Ruminator". My brain likes to endlessly play out scenarios of the future, analysis of the present, always with a strong bias to imagined negative outcomes / thoughts. Much like a recovering alcoholic, I'm a ruminator in recovery -- one day, when I see my Lord, I'll be "cured".

Through Mindfulness -- the subject of the linked, and a lot of prayer, my "monkey mind" chatters less. I've also learned to appreciate the GIFT of an active mind ... one that questions, searches, considers options, naturally thinks critically, etc. Like every piece of our human existence, the tendency to "overthink" is both a blessing and a curse.

A good article. It also makes me think of Eckhart Tolle.

I especially liked this from the article ...

As I wrote in my book 101 Mindful Ways to Build Resilience: "Uncertainty is the keystone of life. The truth is this: No one can purchase or own the future."

As simple as ACCEPT what is, and what will be. And as complicated ...

Epimenides, Absolute Thinking, Schiff

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/01/a-postmodern-impeachment.php

As Pilate observed, "what is truth"?

Is very hard question for mere humans to arrive an answer to this question -- although our media marketing complex is ready and willing to give us easy (but false) answers. 

Accepting that Christ is "The Way, The Truth and The Life", would be an excellent start. This would quickly lead to the realization that we can at most , "discern" with a lot of his Grace, that we can never judge, because "Judgement is the Lords". 

The linked gets into the Epimenides paradox -- "All Cretans are liars" ... however, Epimenides is a Cretan, so ... 

Sentient beings tend to get out of this paradox pretty easily, since the idea of "absolutes" is more applicable in the domain of mathematics and metaphysics than reality. Primarily, because they inherently realize that such thought games are just that -- games. They don't put food on the table!  If they choose to waste a little time, they know that just because Epimenides and Cretins may be "in most cases"  liars, does not infer ALL cases, 

For flesh and blood people who do actual work and live in the real world outside of the echo chamber of Washington and the MSM, and sometimes, (with increasing difficulty) even outside the "Matrix-lite" world of  media and marketing (but I repeat myself), most of what the "Media-Marketing-Matrix sells and tells is simply nonsense. 

The "Media-Marketing-Matrix" (MMM) deals mostly in absolues, and absolutes need to have the classic lost in space warning -- "Danger Will Robinson" on their "package" (like cigarettes). 

... but of course they do not. The Deep/Administrative State are increasingly one in the same with the MMM -- it is very lucrative to sell snake oil.

One of the many losses as our nation as lost God, is that Satan has led many of us into the ditches of "Liberals bad, Conservatives good" ... or vice-versa, the general case of "Our side good, other side evil". We are lost lambs without Christ, easily led to the easy (and false) comfort of earthly absolutes. Satan is a VERY absolute guy -- my guess is that the true Absolute of Gods Love and willingness to forgive is what really burned his biscuits. How could God love such clearly flawed, ugly,  and unloveable creatures as humans! Satan simply could not accept the "injustice" of it! 

Someone with basic exposure to psychology understands how dangerous such thinking is to our lives and relationships. However we are daily bombarded with media that is increasingly targeted to support each of our narrow views as "ultimate justice", and the alternative POV as the "essence of evil",  thus relationships, family, and eventually our country are destroyed. 

Trump is Satan, Adam Schiff is truth and light! ... or vice versa. Call me skeptical. 

We are in grave peril. 

The Psychopath Inside

https://www.goodreads.com/notes/18917592-the-psychopath-inside/6923915-bill-berg?ref=rsp

A book I  very much enjoyed -- but many may not. It gives you "The time", "The watch", "How to build the watch", as well as quite a bit about the watchmaker (biography) -- a play on "I just wanted to know the time, not how to build a watch". "

The author, James Fallon, is a fairly famous brain scientist specializing in the study of what the brains of psychopaths look like, and how are they different from the norm. If you want to get to know him, there are a number of Youtube's of him, and he has appeared in the media in various forms.

The "punchline" is that he accidentally discovers that HE is what he classifies as a "prosocial psychopath"! He also has some interesting connections " ... I had seen her (mom) lecture our family friend George Carlin ...". Also a bunch of film and media connections, since the line between scary and interesting is sometimes narrow -- "psychopathic killer" as sold a lot of movies and books!

He goes into a LOT of depth on his personal life experience, and the neuroscience of various behavior disorders -- depression, borderline, bipolar, narcissism, OCD, panic disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, obesity, social phobia, etc

He starts out as pretty much a materialist "matter over mind, nature vs nurture", but as with many of us, reality has a way of calling imagined world views into question as they face up to the actual world. 

In my mind, we are machines, albeit machines we don’t understand all that well, and I have believed for decades that we have very little control over what we do and who we are. To me, nature (genetics) determines about 80 percent of our personality and behavior, and nurture (how and in what environment we are raised) only 20 percent.

This is the way I have always thought about the brain and behavior. But this understanding took a stinging, and rather embarrassing, blow starting about 2005, and I continue to reconcile my past belief with my present reality. I have come to understand—even more than I did before—that humans are, by nature, complicated creatures.

I found the results of a a Case Western Reserve study by  Anthony Jack to be an interesting explanation as to why some people have a lot of trouble thinking of a dualistic mind/body/spirit sort of split.

What group of people did Tony Jack find that are stumped by the very idea of dualism? Psychopaths. My lack of emotional empathy and my abandonment of God, the soul, and belief in free will may all be connected.

As Christ said, "forgive them for they know not what they do", it seems that science has now verified this.

Having worked at IBM with a number of people (including myself) at least fairly high on the autism spectrum, I found the following interesting.

... another important dichotomy, and that is between emotional empathy and cognitive empathy, also known as “theory of mind.” Theory of mind, as I’ve previously discussed, arises early in childhood, developing progressively until adulthood, and is a key developmental accomplishment in which the child learns she possesses mental states like desires and intentions and beliefs, and that others possess similar states, though those may be different from her own. Someone with autism will not show a normal theory of mind. This lack may also be present in people with some personality disorders such as borderline personality disorder, and also some forms of bipolar disorder. In contrast, people with psychopathy, narcissism, and certain affective types of schizophrenia will have cognitive empathy but lack emotional empathy.

 As I worked as a Peer Support Specialist and reflectect on my personal struggles with anxiety, depression and panic, and also studied DBT and practiced mindfulness, I became more aware of various "spectrums" ... as was stated in the book.

Psychiatry is moving away from categorical thinking—the latest diagnostic manual talks about “dimensions” to disorders—but it’s hard when doctors don’t want to learn new methods, insurance companies need to rely on specific diagnoses, and everyone likes closure and clearly defined labels. I see psychopathy like others see art; I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.

Categories are helpful and dangerous -- as is pretty much everything. "Everything in moderation" is a statement with a lot of wisdom. We are ALL "on the spectrum" for all characteristics, AND, the more we are aware of that, and willing to give grace to others because we are all in the same boat, the better this world will be. "Do unto others" tells the tale.

Would you like to be forgiven? Then forgive.

Would you like to be loved? Then love.

Would you like to be understood? Then seek to understand.

I found this paragraph to be obviously and totally true! (at age 63 ;-)

These brain circuits mature at different times during development, and although there are major maturational events that take place in the terrible twos, puberty, late adolescence, the twenties, and the mid-thirties, some are not completely integrated until one is in the sixties, which appears to be the typical average peak time of human insight, cognition, and understanding in many realms of life.

Not that we have a choice, but if I did have a choice, the grass looks greener to me on the other side ... (I've got a lot of anxiety and memory, and my theory is that part of the reason they go together is because you KNOW that if you screw up, or bad things happen to you, you WILL remember -- VIVIDLY!)

For example, one allele that codes for the growth factor BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) is associated with excellent memory but high anxiety. This is the combination I have, and it fits with my actual behavior. The other allele of BDNF codes for lower memory function but also low anxiety. So what would I rather have, a great memory and high anxiety or a poorer memory and a mellow disposition? Tough call.

So ... if you enjoy LOTS of detail, low level brain chemistry discussion, personal biography/asides, etc, then I HIGHLY recommend this book. If you don't, then if you are able to judiciously skip around the "watchmaking sections", you might still like it --- otherwise, look for other brilliantly done reviews like this one ;-)

Get Thee Outside Of Thyself

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/geneveith/2020/01/luthers-psychological-remedy/

The book referenced at end of linked is on order. This is definitely a "just read the referenced" ... I'm not going to add any wisdom here, and I doubt I can distill it any better than Luther or Veith for that matter, whose Blog I follow, and whose one book I've read so far, I love.

One tiny quote ...

Christians especially should consider the implications of a God who became flesh, who sanctifies the glorious and distinct beings comprising external reality. He, after all, is the “Logos,” or Being, who brought about and secures the “logoi,” or beings, of the created external order. Because of him, our “neighbor” becomes an object of love, not a character in our own psychic dramas. He draws us out of ourselves and into himself, the glorious “other.”