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Monthly Archives

September 2009

MysteriesObsessions & CompulsionsThe Zeitgeist

The Deeper Meaning of Adultery

by Dr. Mark Dillof September 30, 2009October 20, 2018
written by Dr. Mark Dillof
The Deeper Meaning of Adultery
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If you haven’t seen the hit TV drama Mad Men, it’s about a New York advertising agency, in the year 1960. Its protagonist is a philandering advertising executive, named Don Draper. The other members of the firm are also philandering, but since this is a short essay, we’ll focus on Don Draper.

Don loves his attractive wife, but he cheats on her. Why? Obviously, for sexual satisfaction, but for other reasons as well. These include personal vanity; being a lothario is important to his self-image. Then there is the egotistical thrill of being naughty without consequence, as well as the excitement of evading detection. His overactive libido is also a product of the stress of his job, coupled with boredom, depression, emptiness and a need to distract himself from the deeper questions about life that are pursuing him.

There’s yet another reason for his unfaithfulness, and it’s the one that particularly interests us here. Although, on one level, Don is a loving husband and good father, he would appear to be running away from his wife. Even when he is physically with her, he eludes the emotional intimacy that she desires from him. His affairs with other women is really the flipside of his flight from his wife. It could be argued, though, that Don is a bit of a cold fish in general. For example, he heartlessly distances himself from his long lost brother, Adam, who had eagerly wished to reestablish relations with him. But our focus here will be on Don’s relation to women. What is he really seeking and what is he really running away from?

A Clue to the Whole Affair

Language can often offer clues to life’s mysteries. Consider the word “cheating,” a word most frequently used in the context of sports and games. How curious that it is also a synonym for adultery. It suggests that a marriage is a competition of some sort and that one can seek to gain an unfair advantage. The interaction between the sexes has, indeed, often been called a game, as well as a “battle,” when that interaction becomes more contentious. Sometimes it’s been thought of as a dance. But a dance — especially the Tango — often mimics a competition between man and the woman. In any case, the game-like dimension of male/female relationships suggests that there can be a winner and a loser.

What, though, does it mean to win? As we’ve previously discussed, feminine and masculine are two poles of reality. They are viewed mythically as Mother Earth and Father Sky. Or they can be viewed metaphysically as matter and form. Each one needs its polar opposite in order to be complete. But each wants to be the supreme principle. Is there any surprise, then, that there would be a battle of the sexes?

An aspect of this erotic battle involves the wife seeking to have her husband invest their marriage with ultimate importance. The husband, fearing the loss of freedom and masculine potency — that comes with domestication — wishes to regard his marriage as a significant dimension of his life, but not as ultimate. His wife can seek to draw him closer through a variety of means. Her cooking can, for example, addict him to life’s comforts. Furthermore, by agreeing with his opinions she can be for him an emotional refuge, from the cares and conflicts that fill his workday. He, on the other hand, can use his work and other interests to stay distant and so maintain his individuality. Among those other interests can be other women.

In a certain respect, Don Draper is fearful of his wife. What he actually fears is…

Would you like to read the rest of this insightful

essay? Then download a copy of

Mysteries in Broad Daylight!

Broad Daylight!

 

Hot off the virtual presses, after four years of intense research and writing! Dr. Mark Dillof has essentially written a detective manual, for those seeking clues to the most perplexing enigmas of everyday life. He initially planned to sell it at seminars, for $75, but a friend recommended making it available to a much larger audience of readers, by offering it as an e-book, for only $9.95. Read more about this amazing new book, at:   www.deepestmysteries.com

Or you can…

Download for Amazon Kindle 

Download for Barnes & Noble Nook

Mysteries in Broad Daylight contains:

  • Powerful essays — like the one you’ve been reading, designed to help you decipher the meaning of everyday life, who you are and what it’s all about.
  • Exciting dialogues — they will entertain you, but also make you think deeply about life.
  • Exercises and questions designed to teach you the art of uncovering the deep meaning of everything — from the foods we eat to our conflicts at the workplace, from our problems on the golf course to life’s ultimate riddles.
  • And much, much more!

Mark Dillof’s new book will awaken you to the mysteries of everyday life. Indeed, it’s likely to expand your consciousness 100fold, illuminate your world and blow your mind!

How much is a life-changing insight worth to you? $1000? $10,000? Priceless? Mysteries in Broad Daylight is overflowing with life-changing insights and all for only $9.99!

 Read more about this amazing new book at www.deepestmysteries.com

 

Mysteries in Broad Daylight will soon be available in paperback, for $19.99. 

September 30, 2009October 20, 2018 0 comment
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Everyday SymbolismMysteries

The Psychological Appeal of Angry Whoppers

by Dr. Mark Dillof September 27, 2009October 20, 2018
written by Dr. Mark Dillof
The Psychological Appeal of Angry Whoppers
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Last Tuesday, I gave a seminar at a local college, on the psychology of food. The class explored the psychological notion that we are what we eat. Selfhood is on the proverbial table, when we sit down for a meal. For example, many people are repulsed by oysters and other slimy foods, for they feel that they will become slimy if they consume what is slimy. (See Jean-Paul Sartre’s analysis of the slimy in “Being and Nothingness.”)

On the other hand, if we feel alienated, we can eat whole-grain and organic foods and feel like we have gained wholeness, as we’ve discussed previously. This sort of thing doesn’t make rational sense, but we are certainly not rational creatures at the dinner table. On the contrary, our awareness is often on what can be called a “symbolic level consciousness,” where not only are we the food that we eat, but we are the clothes we wear, the car we drive, etc.

A woman, in the class, asked: “What’s the appeal of Burger King’s ‘Angry Whopper?’” (For those who never tried one, it consists of a regular Whopper that has ingredients added, such as Jalapeño peppers, that make it hot and spicy.) She was perplexed by the fact that we usually think of anger as a negative emotion. It would, indeed, seem counterintuitive that someone would wish to eat an Angry Whopper and thus — through the symbolism that you are what you eat — to become angry.

Before we could proceed with an analysis, another student in the class objected that Burger King’s commercials for the Angry Whooper are humorous, which they are. They are really poking fun at the notion of a burger being so hot with peppers and spices as to be angry, and that by eating one, a person would become angry. They may even be mocking the emotion of anger itself, in a way that professional wrestling, for example, does or Moe from “The Three Stooges” used to do. Along these same lines, Burger King created an “Angry Gram” website, where you can create an angry/humorous letter and send it to somebody.

But, as it’s been said, “Many a true word is said in jest.” Both Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer have written on that subject. They both distinguish irony from humor. When a person is ironic, he is outwardly serious, but concealing the fact that he is really kidding (laughing up his sleeve). Humor, by contrast, appears to be a jest, but conceals a deeper seriousness. The Angry Whopper ads for Burger King are, in that sense humorous. Let us, then, examine what deeper meaning lies concealed between the buns.

Instant Thumos

What, then, could be the psychological appeal of eating an Angry Whopper? To answer that question, we must analyze the psychological appeal of anger. Consider the fact that many people feel tired, complaisant and bored with their “ho hum,” quotidian lives. (That’s why there’s always a market for motivational speakers, who promise to reenergize them.) Sometimes they need a long vacation, or perhaps a more interesting and challenging job, or a new career. But oftentimes they may be suffering from a lack of meaning, purpose and direction in their lives. Anger is often employed as a surrogate for meaning, purpose, and direction. It can get our adrenalin flowing and provide an object for our frustrations. It serves to direct our energies, as does meaning.

Anger can also serve to remove inhibitions. Apropos of the motivating power of anger, I am reminded of a fellow I knew, when I worked, quite some years back, as a stock and commodities broker on Wall Street. He was one of the top brokers in our office. By that I mean that he was a topnotch salesman, for a stockbroker is essentially a salesman. He once confessed to me one of the secrets of his sales ability. During his lunch break, he would take the elevator down from our office at the World Trade Center and stroll over to the American Stock Exchange. As he walked along, he would smoke a joint, while listening, on his SONY Walkman, to a recording of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. (That piece is charged with anger, for Tchaikovsky, like his fellow Russians, was enraged by Napoleon’s invasion of Russia. The music expresses the Russian’s battle and victory against Napoleon’s forces.)

My friend would then return to the office and be sales dynamo on the telephone. The marijuana combined with the anger-charged patriotic music had the effect of drowning out all of my friend’s moral inhibitions. Those inhibitions were, to a large extent, founded on the fact that the product everyone in the office was selling — options on gold futures — although perfectly legal, was far from being a sound investment. (The problem was that that the high price of the options made their break-even point way to steep.)

I mention this because I think that the energy this fellow gained by listening to the 1812 Overture, while stoned, is akin to the type of energy that people seek by eating an Angry Whopper. After consuming one, we become like Popeye after having eaten a can of spinach. We become energized by what the ancient Greeks called thumos, the spirited part of the human soul. We would then have the courage to go out and do what needs to be done — from asking our boss for a raise to selling commodity options, from proposing marriage to our sweetheart to demanding that a store refund our money on a shoddy piece of merchandise. Thus do the ads for the Angry Whopper promise…

Would you like to read the rest of this insightful

essay? Then download a copy of Mysteries in

Broad Daylight!

Broad Daylight!

 

Hot off the virtual presses, after four years of intense research and writing! Dr. Mark Dillof has essentially written a detective manual, for those seeking clues to the most perplexing enigmas of everyday life. He initially planned to sell it at seminars, for $75, but a friend recommended making it available to a much larger audience of readers, by offering it as an e-book, for only $9.95. Read more about this amazing new book, at:   www.deepestmysteries.com

Or you can…

Download for Amazon Kindle 

Download for Barnes & Noble Nook

Mysteries in Broad Daylight contains:

  • Powerful essays — like the one you’ve been reading, designed to help you decipher the meaning of everyday life, who you are and what it’s all about.
  • Exciting dialogues — they will entertain you, but also make you think deeply about life.
  • Exercises and questions designed to teach you the art of uncovering the deep meaning of everything — from the foods we eat to our conflicts at the workplace, from our problems on the golf course to life’s ultimate riddles.
  • And much, much more!

Mark Dillof’s new book will awaken you to the mysteries of everyday life. Indeed, it’s likely to expand your consciousness 100fold, illuminate your world and blow your mind!

How much is a life-changing insight worth to you? $1000? $10,000? Priceless? Mysteries in Broad Daylight is overflowing with life-changing insights and all for only $9.99!

 Read more about this amazing new book at www.deepestmysteries.com

 

Mysteries in Broad Daylight will soon be available in paperback, for $19.99.

Addendum: Who Needs Angry Whoppers, when We Have Obama
There is no doubt that anger is quite often justified. For example, millions of Americans have awoken to the fact that their government is threatening to rob them of their savings, undermine their values and destroy their liberty. Thanks to having elected a demagogue, those who had been suffering from a lethargic complacency no longer need alcohol or drugs, the 1812 Overture, motivational speakers, double shots of espresso, a can of spinach or an Angry Whopper to become prompted into decisive action, as evidenced by the “tea parties” and town hall meetings.

Nietzsche wrote something to the effect that “from a true opponent endless energy flows.” Obama has unwittingly reenergized many people’s lives, but ironically it was not from all his hopeless blather about hope and change. On the contrary, by threatening to undermine America’s core values, he has forced millions of Americans to reconnect with those values. Obama has, in so doing, reenergized those who now oppose him. If Obama doesn’t succeed in transforming America into Amerika, a third world socialist nation, it might be the silver cloud in the presidency of this dangerously deluded, arrogant and self-inflated windbag.

(Argh! Just writing about the demagogue has gotten me Irish up! And so I don’t think we shall be needing that Angry Whopper for lunch today.)

September 27, 2009October 20, 2018 0 comment
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MysteriesPolitics

The New Ugly Americans: from Being Hated to Being Despised

by Dr. Mark Dillof September 18, 2009October 20, 2018
written by Dr. Mark Dillof
The New Ugly Americans: from Being Hated to Being Despised
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Would you rather be hated or be despised? They are not synonymous. Hate is often an amalgam of other emotions — such as loathing, wrath, fear and envy. To be despised, on the other hand, is to have other people feel contempt and condescension towards you.

You might invite contempt for your faults. If they were serious enough to be sins — and if your actions adversely affected the lives of others — you might even be despised. People might look down on you condescendingly, perhaps even with a certain degree of pity, as one might for a weakling, a coward, a fool, a degenerate, or a person bereft of moral compass. What’s key here is that they would feel morally superior to you. Many a politician has been despised for this reason.

If, on the other hand, you lived a life of goodness and virtue, some people would like and admire you. But other people would — out of fear, envy and feelings of inferiority — hate you. Socrates, for example, was feared for the power of his unsettling questions, for questions can cause a person to fall into self-doubt. And Socrates was envied for the life he led. After all, a life spent in the pursuit of truth is a blessed life. Consequently, the Athenians hated Socrates enough to condemn him to death.

It is, therefore, the case that you are despised for your sins, but hated for your virtues. As with people, so it is with nations, which leads to our tale of America’s recent transformation under President Obama’s foreign policy…

High Noon for America

There is no truer account of America’s destiny among the nations than the Western, High Noon (1952). In that iconographic film, the freed convict, Frank Miller, arrives in town, on the noon train, with the intention of killing Sheriff Will Kane. In a particularly telling scene, the puerile deputy sheriff, Harvey Pell, tries to convince Sheriff Kane to leave town, supposedly out of concern for Will’s safety. Harvey even saddles Will’s horse for him. But when Will decides to remain in town to face Frank Miller, Harvey violently attempts to force him to leave.

What is the real reason why Harvey is so eager to have Sheriff Kane leave town? Harvey is cowardly, but he would like people to believe otherwise. The townspeople see through Harvey and his girlfriend mocks him for not being a man, unlike Sherriff Kane, whom she admires. Kane, who is truly heroic, is making Harvey look weak and pusillanimous. Indeed, Sherriff Kane is making most of the townspeople look like cowards.

It is also clear that many people in town would be only too glad to see Sheriff Kane gone and to have the villainous Frank Miller run the town. The spiritually weak welcome dictators, for dictators — and demagogues too — promise to take care of their material needs, and to give their shabby lives meaning and direction.

Correspondingly, the spiritually weak hate those who possess goodness, courage, and honor, for it castes into bas-relief their own wretched lives. And they hate them all the more vehemently when they offer them the heavenly gift of freedom, for freedom can only be a torment to a demon-possessed soul. For one thing, newfound freedom requires remorse over the wretched life one has been living, coupled with an anxious venturing into an unknown terrain. Apropos is Kierkegaard’s notion of “dread of the good.” (That’s right, rather than dreading that which is bad or evil, we can according to the perceptive Kierkegaard, dread what is good!) In any case, High Noon, is not just about a western town. It is about America among the nations. One might say that it’s always high noon for America.

America is sometimes despised for its supposed imperialism, but other nations that have actually been imperialistic — such as England, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Russia, Japan, China, and Germany — have never been hated with the degree of venom reserved for Americans. There is a reason for this: While America may be despised for her sins, she is truly hated for her virtues. Like the Jews, Americans are held to an impossibly high moral standard, for the American spirit has, at its core, an idealism unparalleled among the nations. That is why there is a parallel between antisemitism and anti-Americanism.

America’s efforts to promote human rights, democracy, law, and liberty, are invariably viewed with cynicism by her foes who — with the jaundiced and paranoid eyes endemic to conspiracy theorists — claim that they see only self-interest, concluding that American foreign policy is all really about oil, wealth, and hegemony.

Like any nation, America has its economic and political interests. How could she not? But what is maddening to many foreigners, as well as to those on the political left, is that a supposedly idealistic nation should have any economic and political interests. These cynics are akin to spoiled adolescents, who angrily accuse their struggling parents of not being the angels they childishly demand them to be.

It is, therefore, understandable that the Americans often find themselves criticized by the miserable refuse that can be found in every nation of the world, by those forever in flight from themselves and from God. What the world needs now is exorcists, i.e., those skilled in casting out demons.

Unfortunate Addendum: No Longer Hated, but Now Despised

Recent changes in American foreign policy have been transforming America’s role in the world. Our meddling in the affairs of a tiny democracy, Honduras, is a telltale sign of bad things to come. The effort of the Obama administration to reinstate Honduras’ deposed leftist leader and would be dictator, Manuel Zelaya is, indeed, a national disgrace. So is President Obama’s betrayal of America’s allies, such as Israel, Poland and Czechoslovakia. Furthermore, President Obama has befriended the brutal thug of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, and pursued a policy of appeasement towards aggressor nations, such as Iran and Russia.

President Reagan stated that “The United States remains the last best hope for a mankind plagued by tyranny and deprivation.” If we continue to support dictators, that last best hope will be but a sad memory. When America ceases to stand for liberty, her days as a nation will be numbered, for there are too many enemies that wish to destroy her. It is no exaggeration that the ship of state is foundering and in serious peril.

It is a major foreign policy objective, of President Obama, that America not be hated. No more shall we be viewed as the “ugly Americans.” That is why, in his first months of office, he traveled around the world apologizing for our nation’s history. If President Obama succeeds with his foreign policy objectives, America will — having lost her status as both a superpower and beacon for freedom — no longer be envied, feared and hated. Instead, America will be intensely despised, both by her enemies and by her former friends, whom she betrayed. Yes, this transformative presidency has transformed hatred into contempt. It will increasingly imperil the security and freedom of America and the world.

September 18, 2009October 20, 2018 4 comments
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About Me

Mark Dillof has been a philosophical counselor for over twenty years. You can learn more about his work, by going to his other website, www.deeperquestions.com.

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