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  • The Thing Called Intuition

    The Thing Called Intuition

    Men, as each one is aware of, are disposed to query this superior intelligence of ladies; their egoism calls for the denial, and they’re seldom reflective sufficient to get rid of it by logical and evidential evaluation. Moreover, as we will see a bit afterward, there’s a sure specious look of soundness of their place; they’ve pressured upon ladies a synthetic character which nicely conceals their actual character, and girls have discovered it worthwhile to encourage the deception. But although each regular man thus cherishes the soothing unction that he’s the mental superior of all ladies, and notably of his spouse, he always provides the mislead his pretension by consulting and deferring to what he calls her instinct.

    That is to say, he is aware of by expertise that her judgment in lots of issues of capital concern is extra delicate and looking out than his personal, and, being disinclined to accredit this higher sagacity to a extra competent intelligence, he takes refuge behind the doctrine that it is because of some impenetrable and intangible expertise for guessing appropriately, some half mystical tremendous sense, some imprecise (and, in essence, infra-human) intuition.

    The true nature of this alleged intuition, nonetheless, is revealed by an examination of the conditions which encourage a person to name it to his support. These conditions don’t come up out of the purely technical issues which are his every day concern, however out of the rarer and extra basic, and therefore enormously harder issues which beset him solely at lengthy and irregular intervals, and so supply a check, not of his mere capability for being drilled, however of his capability for real ratiocination.

    No man, I take it, save one consciously inferior and hen-pecked, would seek the advice of his spouse about hiring a clerk, or about extending credit score to some paltry buyer, or about some routine piece of tawdry swindling; however not even essentially the most egoistic man would fail to sound the sentiment of his spouse about taking a companion into his enterprise, or about standing for public workplace, or about combating unfair and ruinous competitors, or about marrying off their daughter. Such issues are of huge significance; they lie on the basis of well-being; they name for one of the best thought that the person confronted by them can muster; the perils hidden in a incorrect resolution overcome even the clamors of vainness. It is in such conditions that the superior psychological grasp of ladies is of apparent utility, and needs to be admitted. It is right here that they rise above the insignificant sentimentalities, superstitions and formulae of males, and apply to the enterprise their singular expertise for separating the looks from the substance, and so train what is known as their instinct.

    Intuition? With all respect, bosh! Then it was instinct that led Darwin to work out the speculation of pure choice. Then it was instinct that fabricated the gigantically advanced rating of “Die Walkure.” Then it was instinct that satisfied Columbus of the existence of land to the west of the Azores. All this instinct of which a lot transcendental garbage is merchanted is not any extra and at least intelligence—intelligence so eager that it might probably penetrate to the hidden fact by way of essentially the most formidable wrappings of false semblance and manner, and so little corrupted by sentimental prudery that it is the same as the much more tough job of hauling that fact out into the sunshine, in all its bare hideousness. Women resolve the bigger questions of life appropriately and shortly, not as a result of they’re fortunate guessers, not as a result of they’re divinely impressed, not as a result of they practise a magic inherited from savagery, however merely and solely as a result of they’ve sense.

    They see at a look what most males couldn’t see with searchlights and telescopes; they’re at grips with the necessities of an issue earlier than males have completed debating its mere externals. They are the supreme realists of the race. Apparently illogical, they’re the possessors of a uncommon and delicate super-logic. Apparently whimsical, they hold to the reality with a tenacity which carries them by way of each section of its incessant, jellylike shifting of kind. Apparently unobservant and simply deceived, they see with vivid and horrible eyes. In males, too, the identical cruel perspicacity generally exhibits itself—males acknowledged to be extra aloof and uninflammable than the overall—males of particular expertise for the logical—sardonic males, cynics. Men, too, generally have brains. But that may be a uncommon, uncommon man, I enterprise, who’s as steadily clever, as always sound in judgment, as little postpone by appearances, as the typical ladies of forty-eight.

    Extract from IN DEFENSE OF WOMEN by H. L. Mencken

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  • Spinoza’s Ethics of Strength of the Emotions in W Somerset Maughm’s Of Human Bondage

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    The writer probes on the complex world of W. Somerset Maughm’s protagonist in the novel Of Human Bondage, using the propositions the Jewish Portuguese philosopher Baruch Spinoza postulated in his book Ethics in 1674. Some of Spinoza’s propositions are as follows( Morgan, 2006, pp 108-120):

    The following propositions of Spinoza enlighten the changing character of Philip in his own bildungsromans of his life. The force and increase of any passive emotion and its persistence in existing is defined not by the power whereby we ourselves endeavour to persist in existing, but by the power of external causes compared with our own power;

    The force of any passive emotion can surpass the rest of man’s activities or power so that the emotion stays firmly fixed in him;

    An emotion cannot be checked or destroyed except by a contrary emotion which is stronger than the emotion which is to be checked;

    Knowledge of good and evil is nothing other than the emotion of pleasure or pain insofar as we are conscious of it;

    An emotion whose cause we think to be with us in the present is stronger than it would be if we did not think the said cause to be with us;

    We are affected toward a future thing which we imagine to be imminent mo intensely than if we were to imagine its time of existence tofarther away from the present. We are also affected by a remembrance of a thing we imagine to belong to the near past more intensely if we were to imagine it to belong to the distant past;

    An emotion toward a thing which we think of as inevitable [necessarius] is more intense, other things being equal, than emotion toward a thing possible or contingent, that is, not inevitable;

    Emotion toward a thing which we know not exist in the present, and which we imagine to be possible, is, other things being equal, more intense than emotion toward a contingent thing;

    Emotion toward a contingent thing which we know not to exist in the present, is, other things being equal, feebler than emotion toward a thing past;

    No emotion can be checked by the true knowledge of good and evil, insofar as it is true, but only insofar as it is;

    Desire that arises from the true knowledge of good and evil can be extinguished or checked by many other desires that arise from the emotions by which we are assailed;

    The desires that arises from a knowledge of good and evil insofar as this knowledge has regard to to the future can be the more easily checked or extinguished by desire of things that are attractive in the present;

    Desire that arises from the true knowledge of good and evil insofar as this knowledge is concerned with contingent things can be even more easily checked by desire for things which are present;

    Desire arising from pleasure is, other things being equal, stronger than desire arising from pain;

    Every man, from the laws of his nature, necessarily seeks or avoids what he judges to be good or evil.

    The more every man endeavours and is able to seek advantage, that is, to preserve his own being, the more he is endowed with virtue. On the other hand insofar as he neglects to preserve what is to his advantage, that is, his own being to that extent he is weak.

    Philip is highly affected by nature. There is in Nature no individual thing that is surpassed in strength and power by some other thing. Whatsoever thing there is, there is another more powerful by which the said thing can be destroyed. And he was able to surpass all his problems because of the incoming different emotions, problems which proved to make him stronger if not released from “Human Bondage”.

    The force whereby a man persist in existing is limited, and infinitely surpassed by the power of external causes.

    Philip’s deformity limits his own persistence to live. But his meeting with Hayward, Clutton and Lawson, his former classmates in France, who taught him that life is all about passion and the pursuit of it, he became engross in his art. France did not also care about his clubfoot. Cronshaw taught him more philosophy in life about living in let live. Cronshaw even on his death bed, defied doctors’ prohibition. His life is anyway to end just like any other’s lives.

    Set in Kent, England, a sub-urban near London, the novel presents the multifaceted personal, social, political and religious experiences of Philip carey from his childhood to his middle age of thirty. A bildungsroman (1991, Smiley) in style, which highlights the formation of a youngman’s character through education, travels and early life experiences. Philip at the age of nine, as a young boy, is set apart from his peers by some misfortune and undergoes a humiliating experience that later proves strengthening. his first experience of love is unsuccessful or problematic one that nevertheless paves the way to a happy marriage with a suitable mate. The novel has ample observation, if not criticism, with the character’s institutions such as schools, churches and class structures.

    Philip’s personal life is truly an amalgam of life’s tragedies. But how he surpassed the seemingly insurmountable heap of oppressing weight, if not the meaninglessness or nothingness of life, is the focus of this attempt anchored on Spinoza’s propositions. To enumerate, at an early age, his mother died of tuberculosis and his father, a medical doctor, died of lung cancer. His innocence never understood the situation. He has only the temporary joy of travelling to Blackstable to live with his uncle William and childless Auntie Louisa. Forcibly liking his second family as an orphan, he is left reading his books without noise for his uncle, a Vicar in the community, is irated with children’s unruly behaviour. Aunt Louisa is incapable of understanding Philip. he is left with the care of the governess. His personal disability or deformity, being born with a club-foot, proves to be the stigma of his life forever. His early education in Kingston School, caused his early childhood bitter as his peers laughed at him, mocked and physically abused him because of his physical abnormality. Then, his adolescence which brings him to Heidelberg, Germany to study foreign languages, is never sweet. Girls chided him for his deformity. the consolation is meeting friends like Hayward and Miss Wilkinson, who flirted with him, to his disgust. His sojourn to France, albeit, his uncle’s disappointment, proves to be annihilating. His lack of talent in painting plus his deformity, made him a mediocre student. His classmate Fanny Price, who fell in love with him, on the pretext of sharing the same abnormality (hers is lack of beauty), committed suicide out of hunger and wretchedness.

    Then everything escalated to its height, when realizing that painting is not his passion, he goes back to England. He decides to change again to pursue what his uncle William tells him to do: to follow the footsteps of his father. To be a doctor. feeling he has nothing to do, he embraces the new idea. Sauntering along the Parliamentary Street of London, he is driven to dine in a cafe where he meets the slatternly waitress Mildred Rogers who awakens his sexual desire. But his languid mien, caused by his club-foot proves to be a disadvantage. the waitress prefers rugged and rich men. But his desire to pursue the pale, anaemic, aloof Mildred, beomes a challenge to him. Gradually, the two becomeclose. But the ambitious and materialistic waitress always insults him because of his deformity. to slander him cripple, would totally “cripple” his mood and emotion. Even when Philip is generous to the moody Mildred, she hurt him by marrying a German businessman Miller. His desperation is tantamount to his yearning for Mildred. He is left believing that one day, he would see Mildred again. His concentration with his medical study is forlorned. And Mildred came back,looking sickly, with a child. His generosity and forgiveness for his first love, who hurts him the most, is even greater than life. The ingrate waitress after a little recovery from poverty, elopes with Griffith, Philip’s handsome and robust classmate. That is the height of Mildred’s shamelessness. So her expected return is welcomed with derision by the newly awakened Philip. Even when Mildred turns into a prostitute, Philip is only capable of compassion, without passion or sexual desire. She is freed at last. And Philip is extricated from the pains excruciatingly caused by the destitute Mildred.

    His obsession to Mildred costs Philip his fortune and gradually his savings is left with seven pounds. He is forced to stop from his medical studies that brings him to experience unbelievable poverty. He meets the generous Athelneys who fed and sheltered him in his misery. His uncle’s death, leaving an average fortune, helps him to finish his medical studies. His fateful shelter with the Athelneys brings him to his final, harmonious and peaceful resolution to marry Sally Athelney and go on with his life beautifully. Shakespeare is affirmed by saying that “all is well that ends well.

    At this juncture, it is noteworthy to enumerate Spinoza’s propositions to elucidate Philip’s “bondage” and his strength of his emotion. Spinoza in his preface to his philosophical treatise wrote:

    I assign the term “bondage” to man’s lack of power to control and check the emotions. For a man at the mercy of his emotions is not his own master but is subject to fortune, in whose power he so lies that he is often compelled, although he sees the better course, to pursue the worse. In this Part I have set myself the task of demonstrating why is so, and also what is good and what is bad in emotions. But before I begin, I should like to make a few preliminary observations on perfection and imperfection, and on good and bad ( Morgan, 2006).

    In the beginning, Philip is a slave if not a victim of his emotion. His physical deformity, his club-foot, caused him too much pain. He learned to hate his classmates and,worst, abandoned his belief in God. He could not appreciate the God of his uncle vicar when God cannot give him the miracle he wanted to have normal feet. His painful childhood in school changed him to be rough character. He never wanted to become a vicar anymore. His obsession to Mildred indeed showed his real weakness as a man, and even wretchedness as a human being because of his deformity. he would always think that women cannot love him as he is because of his deformity.

    He who has undertaken something and has brought it to completion will say that the thing is completed; and not only he but everyone who rightly knew, or thought he knew, the intention and aim of the author of that work. For example, if anyone sees a work (which I assumed is not yet finished) and knows that the aim of author is to build a house, he will say the house is imperfect. On the other hand, as soon as he sees that the work has been brought to the conclusion that its author had intended to give it, he will say that the house is perfect. But if anyone sees a work whose like he had never seen before, and he does not know the artifecer’s intention, he cannot possibly know whether the work is perfect or imperfect.

    This appears to have been the original meaning of these terms. But when men began to form general ideas and to devise ideal type of houses, buildings, towers, and so on, and to prefer some models to others, it came about that each called “perfect” that which he saw at variance with his own preconceived ideal, although in the artifecer’s opinion it had been fully completed. There seems to be no other reason why even natural phenomena (those not made by human hand) should commonly be called perfect or imperfect. For men there are wont to form general ideas both natural phenomena and artifacts, and these ideas they regard as models, and they believed that Nature (which they consider does nothing without an end in view) looks to this ideas and holds them before herself as models. So when they see something occurring in Nature at variance with their preconceived ideal of the thing in question, they believed that Nature has then failed or blundered and has left that thing imperfect from their own preconceptions rather than from true knowledge.

    So perfection and imperfection are in reality only models of thinking, notions which we are wont to invent from comparing individuals of the same species or kind; and it is for this reason that I previously said (Def. 6, II) that by reality and perfection I mean the same thing. For we are wont to classify all the individuals in Nature under one genus which is called the highest genus, namely, the notion of Entity, which pertains to all the individuals in Nature without exception. Therefore insofar as we classify individuals in Nature under this genus and compare them with one another and find that some have more being or reality than others, to that extent we say that some are more perfect than the others. And insofar as we attribute to them something involving negotiation, such as limit, end, impotence and so on, to that extent we call them imperfect because they do not affect our minds as much as those we call perfect, and not because they lack something of anything except that which follows from the necessity of nature of its efficient cause; and whatever follows from the necessity of the nature of its efficient cause must be necessarily be so.

    To be a master of his emotion is to attain perfection. It may not be physical but spiritual, mental and emotional. His challenges may have hardened him but enlightened him to loosen up and later, embrace the beauty of life. The unattainable perfection, was answered, through his friend Cronshaw, a poet whom he met in France, that the meaning of life cannot be answered unless one lives it. he realized that men are born, study, work, marry, have children and die is the most beautiful pattern that the Persian rug edifies.

    As for the terms “good” and “bad,” they likewise indicate nothing positive in things considered in themselves, and nothing but models of thinking, or notions which we form from comparing things with one another. For one and the same thing can at the same time be good and bad, and also indifferent. For example, music is good for one who is melancholy, bad for one in mourning, and neither good or bad for the deaf. However, although this is so, these terms ought to be retained. For since we desire to form the idea of man which we may look to as model of human nature, we shall find it useful to keep these terms in the sense I have indicated. So in what follows I shall mean by “good” that which we certainly know to be the means for our approaching nearer to the model of human nature that we set before ourselves, and by “bad” that which we certainly know prevents us from reproducing the said model. For it is important to note that when I say somebody passes from a state of less perfection, to a state of greater perfection, and vice versa, I do not mean that he changes from one essence or to form to another (for example, a horse is as completely destroyed if it changes into a man as it would be if it were to change into an insect), but that we conceive his power of activity, insofar as this is understood through his nature, to be increased or diminished.

    Philip may have been both good and bad due to circumstances. he was good in the Blackstable with his Auntie Louisa and Uncle William. he became bad in school because his classmates taunted him because of his clubfoot. In Heidelberg, he is good to all the people even if he did not understand their silence and even their insolence. In France, was forced to become bad, to protect himself from the looming abuses of other foreigners. The death of an anti-social fanny Price, showed him to be the only compassionate painting student.

    Hence, after a series of Philip’s tragedy, his experiences, his meeting with different people, his education, his travel to Heidelberg, to Paris and to London, his affluence and reversal of his fortune to poverty taught him greatest lessons in life. That life can be beautiful if man knows to master his emotion, moderate his desire and be reasonable in every decision. A man is finally freed from the chains and cufflinks ” Of Human Bondage”.

    References:

    Maughm, Somerset W. (1991). Of Human Bondage.

    Canada: Bantam Book Doubleday.

    Morgan, Michael (ed.). (2006). The Essential Spinoza: Ethics And Related Writings.

    Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, Inc.

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    Source by Wilfredo M. Valois

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  • Wrong Reasons For Getting Married – (1) Marrying Out of Sympathy

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    There are right and wrong reasons for getting married. The worst thing a person can do to oneself is to marry a wife or husband for the wrong reason. There are quite a number of wrong reasons why people marry. One of the wrong reasons and perhaps among the most prominent of the wrong reasons is marrying out of sympathy.

    There are many scenarios under this subheading of marrying out of sympathy that relationship coaches experience in the course of counseling and coaching. Some of the most common ones are when the woman gets pregnant as a result of premarital sex and getting married to a person just because one’s brother or sister jilted that person. Between these two extremes, are those who start relationships with girls who are being maltreated by those they serve. Some men get involved with the neighborhood maids or relations of their neighbors who are being maltreated. Women fall into this kind of challenge too.

    When sympathy forms the basis for a relationship with the opposite sex, it is like playing with a keg of gunpowder over a fireplace. Sympathy is a powerful emotion. It so overpowering that it becomes difficult for the parties involved to consider the critical elements in the foundation for a joyful relationship such as friendship, understanding, compatibility etc. If the man is the one sympathizing, he is so enamored into what he sees as the Good Samaritan’s job that he does not consider what stuff the woman is made off, her attitudes, desires and mindset. He does not stop to find out what life purposes she has, what goals she is focused on and how all these could jell into his own desires. If it is the woman that is sympathizing, she goes through the same emotions and also begins to think that if she saves the young man, he would remain loyal to her forever.

    Findings, however, have shown that the truth is far from what these sympathizer-lovers are thinking. If as a result of your efforts the captive is set free, he or she will do what all captives do, “flee”. Fleeing here may not mean running away from their sympathizer-lovers, though that has been known to happen with people who confess that the only feeling they had was to escape the environment. In many instances, the sympathizer-lovers begin to act as saviors and lordships. This is usually resisted, first psychologically and later verbally. And there goes your peace and comfort.

    Marriage relationship requires that both parties are open to each other. Open – meaning that there are no secrets in their hearts that the other partner would not be allowed into. Once these secret feelings are there, it produces reactive communication instead of responsive communication.

    These sympathy missions when it emanates from the premarital sex pregnancy, the woman does not fully get happy in the relationship. This arises from the fact that as the usual challenges appear in the scene, instead of the woman finding a good reason to endure; she only thinks she is in a mess occasioned by the pregnancy. Some have confessed that if they did not get pregnant, there is no way they would end up with the man they are married to. Instead of seeing the usual marriage and child rearing challenges as learning opportunities, they mortify themselves for getting pregnant. And some of the time, they blame the man for putting them in the family way. Some blame the child that resulted from the pregnancy. Hatred for a child has been known to have grown from such situations creating lasting bitterness.

    For the men, having not evaluated the character, demeanor, temperament of their spouse before marriage because of the overpowering influence of the emotion of sympathy, when the woman shows her real character, they are usually overwhelmed. They see themselves as having made terrible mistakes. They now live the rest of their lives in regret, withdrawal or wickedness or under the influence of these three negative but powerful emotions.

    It is necessary that we have it ingrained in the tablet of our hearts that the only reasons good enough for marrying anybody are the foundational elements for joyful relationship. If while in a relationship with the opposite sex there is no opportunity to build friendship and if an understanding of the basic purpose of marriage is not clear to both of you, then there is no other reason why the relationship should continue beyond the next few hours.

    Interestingly, many marriages out there are based on sympathy.

    Young single adults (18-30 years of age) and single adults (31 years and above) should not marry anybody for the purpose of saving face or to save somebody from suffering. Instead of cornering yourselves to this quagmire, why not follow the appropriate dating, courtship and engagement practices where no sexual intimacy is included. There is need to remember that sexual intimacy is only appropriate in a legally and lawfully wedded marriage contract. You need to remember that the basic purpose of sexual intimacy is mainly for procreation and to cement companionship.

    The excitement and pleasure that accompany sexual intercourse is purposed to invite people to take the responsibility that comes with it. Any other use of sexual intimacy outside legal and lawful matrimony is a transgression of the law. And law breakers must bear the full weight of the law. In most cases, there would be no external police to arrest you and no external court to try you and no external prison to sentence you. But there are internal version of the police, the court and the prison and a large farmland where your hard labor would be performed if you commit this offense.

    What is the way to go?

    Here is the way to go. Instead of focusing on sympathy, those planning to get married should focus on what matters most – the purpose of marriage – companionship and procreation. Remember the good Lord Himself said of Adam in the scriptures: “it is not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18), hence He made Eve to keep him company. Do not forget also that the same Creator gave them a commandment to “multiply and replenish the earth” (Genesis 1:28). This is the creator’s approval for sexual intimacy in marriage relationship with the intents and purposes clearly spelled out, though. Latter-day prophets have clearly stated that “sex between a man and a woman in a legal and lawful marriage is ordained of God”. These are the foundational elements that must be established before continuing in the plan for marriage with someone. Both parties ought to know and understand this fully. This knowledge and understanding would bear relationships as the foundation of a building bears it. Marrying for any other reason is like standing the building on its roof.

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    Source by Francis Nmeribe

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