Tyler McCuistion's Archive

Alfred Adler coined the term “inferiority complex” and describes it as a lack of worth. This can be associated with redemption. He believed that every person had an idea of what their perfect self would be and calls this fictional finalism. People feel this inferiority complex because they have not attained this fictional finalism. The inferiority complex drives people to their perfect self, dictating the decisions that they make and creating themselves closer and closer to what they see themselves as being. However, people do not fully understand their fictional finalism, they only have an idea that drives them. Adler also believed the conscious and subconscious to be working together to achieve this goal. It goes with redemption because the ideas of an inferiority complex and fictional finalism work to make the person better and develop them in ways not otherwise possible.

J.B. Watson and his study of Little Albert was not the most ethical way of psychological study in any way. However, he teaches us a lot about the creation. He believes that all humans inherit the emotions of fear, rage, and love. Further, he believes that those emotions change into more specific emotions such as pride, hate, and jealousy. When we experience certain stimuli in association with these, often negative, emotions, it changes our response to them. The way we experience situations influences how we will react to them in the future regardless of the situation. In the study with Little Albert, Watson placed a rat in front of the baby. At first Little Albert was friendly toward the rat and reached out to interact with it. However, through making loud frightening noises to the baby, when reaching out, Little Albert slowly became afraid of the harmless rat. This shows how negative experiences can influence our attitudes toward stimuli. When presented, in the future, with a rat and without the noise, he was still afraid of the rat and would avoid it at all costs. Also, when presented with other furry stimuli, he still showed a fearful response. This shows how even though we may experience some negatively a few times, it can influence how we react in the future regardless of the circumstances. Little Albert was not presented with any kind of loud noises or anything that would elicit fear in him other than the rat that he was conditioned to be afraid of or the furry objects he associated with that fear as well. Watson is associated with creation because he was able to further explain, through less than ideal methods, that what we experience and what stimuli we associate with each other can create who we are and how we react to the world around us.

The collective unconscious was a concept created by Carl Jung. He believed that the collective unconscious was “A deposit of ancestral experience from untold millions of years, the echo of prehistoric world events to which each century adds an infinitesimally small amount of variation and differentiation”. I believe this can relate to redemption. The entire race of humans leave something behind each generation for the next. This “something” means that our minds are not the Tabula rasa, blank slate minds. We are provided some information in our unconscious that came from the collective past to give us knowledge. This gives us more and more knowledge than the times past, possibly making us greater and greater by miniscule amounts over the years. Jung also saw it as the deepest part of our minds, one of the most important parts of our minds. He believes this because it elicits what we do naturally. The responses we have to certain stimuli are naturally born in us from centuries of experience from other people. We are subconsciously programmed to be responsive in different ways than each previous generation. This can lead us in whatever direction we, as a race, desire. However, the ultimate goal is redemption.

Darwin’s theory is largely surrounded by the redemption paradigm. The theory that animals are constantly changing to adapt to their surroundings is evidence of that. By acquiring characteristics over time to better fit the environments they are in, they are becoming more than than they were. Without the characteristics they have obtained to thrive, they would be more imperfect. It is that constant improvement on the many different species that makes Darwin’s theory fit redemption.

In the same way, we, as humans faced similar transformations. Herbert Spencer took Darwin’s theory a little bit further. While Darwin didn’t necessarily believe that evolution meant progress, Herbert absolutely did. He applied Darwin’s theory to society and it is called Social Darwinism. It is defined as the notion that if humans were allowed the freedom to compete in society, the strongest would thrive and the weakest would not. Over time humans have learned practices that are not beneficial to our kind and we have ceased such practices for the most part. We have also discovered new ways of interacting with our surroundings that are sound ways of life. By continuing to act on the good practices and avoid the bad, we are redeeming ourselves and making for ourselves a better, stronger society.

After class today, I thought I would write about Jean Jacques Rousseau and redemption. He believes that all men must be equal. All systems that facilitate inequality should be abolished and new systems should come into place to promote equality. This is an extremely romantic ideal. The task of making every one person in the world equal is seemingly impossible. Even if it were attempted, there would have to be at least one person leading the charge and exerting power over people to make that change, unless of course everybody simultaneously had the same idea and acted it out at the same time. Even then, as mentioned in class, according to Nietzsche, people have a will to power and it has been shown in many situations where man has tried to make each other equals. People still end up taking power and ruling over their “equals”. I understand his idea and how it would be great if everybody was equal, however, I believe that there will never be a time on this earth when everyone will be equal. Knowledge in people can never be equal. If knowledge were equal in every individual, there would never be advancement, life would be all tradition and no change. Change is essential for the development and survival of the world. People are all different and with different desires. We were created that way. People should never be equal to one another, they should act out their own goals in life and simply respect others and their beliefs. The goal should not be equality, but tolerance.

Friedrich Nietzsche has much to say about the redemption of humans. He claims that the only way humans are to get out of the predicament we are in is to look within ourselves to gain knowledge and then use and act on that knowledge. He said that we must find the answers to our life from within and not from others. The answers he says that we get will come from the will to power. He argued with many philosophers about the master human motive. Philosophers such as Spinoza and Schopenhauer believed that motive was self-preservation while Nietzsche believed the goal was for humans to better themselves. The will to power translates into a higher objective than simply self-preservation. By constantly trying to better yourself, you are preserving yourself as well.

Nietzsche has a high view on man because he believes man is on his own now, because we have “killed” God. He believes we must gain access to our full potential by gaining mastery over ourselves and our destinies. People approaching their full potential, he called the ubermensch. This is a term used to show somebody that has grown into their potential and become redeemed from their unmastered selves through man’s will to power. In short man is meant to redeem himself because he is on his own. He must find all knowledge and meaning to his life from within and act upon that knowledge based on his will to power, not only to survive, but to thrive as well in order to reach his full potential.

Plato informed on much. He could inform on creation with his theory of forms and he could inform on the fall, redemption, and restoration using his reminiscence theory of knowledge. What interests me most about Plato, however, are his thoughts on redemption. In his reminiscence theory of knowledge he states that before the immortal soul becomes a part of the body, it is perfect in its knowledge and it lived in the realm of the true forms. However, when it became a part of the body and started to receive sensory experiences from the body, those experiences tainted the pure knowledge the soul had had. Therefor, the only way to obtain true knowledge is to ignore the sensory experiences and use introspection to search for one’s inner understanding. This informs on redemption because his idea gives us a way out of the fallen, contaminated world and into a more enlightened state consisting of true, untainted knowledge. He believed the soul was immortal and had been reborn many times and that the way to true knowledge was to look into yourself and remember what your soul had experienced before it became part of the body. I find his entire reminiscence theory to be very interesting because I am an extremely introspective person and I have wondered if he was ever onto something. Whenever I look into myself, I am able to overcome many problems that I may not have been able to otherwise. Is there a way that I can see what my soul has experienced and am I really drawing from the true knowledge that I may have? Is it redeeming me and restoring my soul to what is was meant to be?