The Space of Representation in
the Non Violent Revolution
Psychology of New Humanism
Silvia Swinden
Presentation based on a chapter
of my book From Monkey
Sapiens to Homo Intentional, The
Phenomenology of the Non
Violent Revolution
London
Oct-06
Introduction
• The development of the concept of Space of Representation is
one of the most original and revolutionary contributions that Silo
has made in the field of Psychology
• It can help us understand the fallacy of trying to produce social
changes without producing deep changes in ourselves (and
vice versa)
• E.g.: Both the French as the Bolshevik Revolutions tried to alter
the social order but the scheme of power already imprinted in
people reproduced itself in the new order. Some went as far as
to declare such order “natural” (Adam Smith and others)
• In our days many still speak of a supposed “Human Nature”,
fixed and unchangeable (aggression, greed, selfishness,
hierarchies), denying that the only natural thing in the Human
being is the capacity to choose and to change
Description of the space of
representation
• With eyes closed :
• We perceive a threedimensional space,
• we can represent our hand
moving in all directions
• we can represent images that
originate in anyone of the
external or internal senses.
• When we open our eyes, it looks as if
this space disappears and that we see
the “real” world
• but it is still possible to imagine that
there is “something” behind a door, so
real that it can produce fear
We can also “see” in others
intentions, moods, etc. that are just
in our imagination
and although in theory this space
ends where our body ends, we can
represent in it the whole universe
The S of R is not an empty container
• Rather it is the representation of the
space associated to the contents of our
consciousness
• In our habitual state of wakefulness we
perceive mainly the space that
surrounds us
• This gives the “form” to the S of R
• For that reason we register different
sensations when we are sitting inside
an igloo or in a cathedral
Neither is it a passive container
• It is the ambit where the consciousness carries out many of
its operations, all those related to images
• Husserl (phenomenological school), had already stated that
our consciousness, always consciousness of something, is
not a simple container of psychic “facts”, neither is it a mirror
that passively reflects, or deforms, the external reality; our
consciousness is intentional, active, and it possesses its own
way of structuring sensations and of building “realities”
(Intentionality)
• Silo: “Human Beings are historical beings whose form of
social action changes their own nature”: Intentionality is seen
in this way as the means to go from determinism towards
freedom
The Space of Representation’s contents
1. Translation of impulses from the innerbody
•
Stomach acidity can appear
represented in a dream as fire,
•
and when we feel thirsty the image of a
bottle of water appears
2. Our psychological world and the
times of the consciousness
•
Memories from the past, present
sensations
•
and images of the future,
aspirations, fears, values, etc.
3. The physical world
•
The space of representation appears
illuminated “at the top” and darker “at the
bottom”.
•
When navigating in it we find images of
the high, medium and low spaces that
are translations of sensations,
•
allegorised and positioned according to
data from memory, that correspond to our
experiences of the “real” physical world
4. The social world
•
The class system
•
social values,
•
our heroes and villains,
•
the power structures,
etc.
5. The spiritual world
• God(s), angels, guides,
the Light, “above.”
• Malicious spirits, devils,
hell, “below.”
Ancient China
• Here is a “map” related
to the circulation of
energy used in the Tao
and Qigong
• They called it “internal
landscape”
The inner look in the social world
“…because all representations
of the “heights” extend from
eye level upward, above the
normal line of sight.
And the “higher-ups” are those
who “possess” kindness,
wisdom, and strength.
There, in the “heights” above,
we also find the hierarchies,
the powers that be, and the
flags of State.
And we, ordinary mortals, must
at all costs “ascend” the
social ladder in order to draw
closer to power.
Humanise the Earth, Silo
What a sorry state we are in, still
governed by these
mechanisms, which coincide
with our internal representation
in which our heads are in the
“heights” and our feet stuck on
the ground.
What an unhappy state we are in,
when we believe in these
things, and believe in them
because they have their own
“reality” in our internal
representation.
What a sorry state we are in,
when our external look is
nothing but an unacknowledged projection of the
internal.
The inhabitants of
one area “lend”
each other
attributes
Gods, angels, kings, movie
“stars”, pop “ídols”, the
aristocracy, etc.
• This very British game of
Snakes and Ladders
reminds us of the biblical
allegory of Man’s “fall”
due to the snake
Demons, “dark motives”, the
“id”, deshumanización
Images in the S of R
• Substratum of the representation, which may come from
anyone of the external or internal senses
• Sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell
• Coenaesthesia, kinaesthesia, etc
• Images connect the internal and external spaces
(Perception/Representation) and transfer energy charges.
Without images there is no action (*)
• They produce tensions, relaxations and adjustments, both
related to changes in the images (conversion of images), and to
changes in their position in the space of representation (e.g
myths and fairy tales: Beauty & the Beast, the Frog/Prince and
Cinderella)
• (See Psychology of the image, Contributions to Thought, by Silo)
(*) Without images there is no action
• Hunger: there is
no movement
• Image: sandwich
in the fridge
• The body, moved
by the image,
goes toward the
sandwich
• Resolved need
• Something similar happens with the
social world
• Violence, dehumanisation, injustice,
non-meaning
• Image of a better world (Ideals,
Utopias, Dreams)
– The impulse of wanting to escape suffering
is not enough, we need an image of
something better to go towards.
– On the other hand Pragmatism goes with
what is already given
• Working for change
– (a little slower and more and complicated
than the thing with the sandwich)
• A Humanised world
Mobility of images in the S of R.
E.g.: Cyrano of Bergerac
• He wrote science fiction in the XVII century
• In his trip to the moon he finds that its
inhabitants measure their intelligence by the
length of their noses
• They also point them to the sun and look at
the time on their teeth
• Cyrano improves de value of his (ugly) nose
by placing it in the high plane of his S of R
and connecting it to the sun and intelligence
and the conversion of images
• The students of magic are made to face the Boggart, a being
capable of embodying their worst fears
• They are taught to transform those images by ridiculing them
• For example, a huge spider gets rolling skates added to all its
legs so it becomes completely destabilised
• A threatening looking male teacher is dressed as a woman
• See: Conversion of images, Relaxation Course, Self liberation, by Luis
Amann
•
•
•
•
The S of R and language
To get to the “top”
Movie “stars”
The “upper” Class
The “gurus” of the “free”
market economy
• The rock “idols”
• “Elevated” aspirations
•
•
•
•
•
•
The “decadence”
The “fallen” woman
Those “base” instincts
The “depths” of depression
The “lowers” Class
The “bottom” of the mind
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
All human activity:
religion and morality,
one’s career, psychology,
politics, the social classes,
the economy, trade unions,
art, education, etc.
have their correlate in the
Space of Representation
• Change is not possible without
an internal, intentional, change
of the images that move us
Money as the central value in the
“Free” Market Economy
• “I know that the money can't buy me happiness but I
like the way it manages to imitate it”
• (Manolito, character of “Mafalda”, by Quino)
• “I only ask for the opportunity to prove that money
cannot make me happy”
• (Spike Milligan, British comedian)
• According to the Neoliberal dogma wealth accumulates
“at the top”: concentration in the hands of the more
“capable” (social Darwinism, zoological vision of the
Human Being) and from there it should “trickle down”
for everybody else’s benefit
In Reality
• Wealth remains “at the top” through speculation,
concentration, “vulture funds” (*), investment in objects
that confer status and access to “famous” or “important”
people's company
• For those waiting in vain “for the trickle down” wealth must
appear as the first element capable of defying gravity! ; -)
• * Vultures Funds from “developed” countries buy the
debts that poor countries cannot repay, e.g., to the IMF,
and sue them in courts in the USA, the United Kingdom
and France (with specialised lawyers that earn millions),
the payments come out of loans for development
Geographically “up” and “down” also correspond
approximately to the situation of the countries of the G8
and the poor countries of the southern hemisphere
• Mafalda turns the World upside down
• So that Argentina, in the southern
hemisphere, does not appear “down”
• Which she identifies with being
“underdeveloped”
• This is an interesting exercise of
Mobility of Images for change in
social and political schemes
Religions and the S of R
• Patriarchal
and
Hierarchical
Religions,
Middle Ages
view
God
• Cult of Mother Earth and
Nature
King
Priests
Man
Woman
Sex
Devil
Flatter hierarchies and a
more friendly attitude
towards sex and the body
Images and Levels of Consciousness
• Sleep
• Maximum suggestibility
• Impulses are translated to
protect the level
•
•
•
•
– Eg: tingling in an arm due to bad
•
position is translated as an
•
image of insects that make us
change the position of the arm
without waking up
• Semi-sleep
• High sugestibilidad
• Compensatory dreams
– Those without a home fantasise
about palaces, and the hungry
dream of banquets
• Ideal level for sexual activity
Wakefulness
Level for work or study
Low suggestibility
Attention to the object
Consciousness of self
Maximum attention and
intentional level
• Attention both to the object
• and to the mechanisms of
consciousness in action
– I realise I am observing this or
that object and that I react in
this or that way, which allows
me to carry out intentional
changes in the way I look
• Advertising tries to bring us into semi-sleep with
sexual images or what will make the
announcement more “sexy” (power, pleasure,
freedom, wealth, youth, even spiritual objects of
consumption!) to increase its sugestibilidad
BUY!
• This is now also the case for politics since
parties hire for their campaigns advertising
agencies and “spin doctors” that build an image
of what we should believe to be reality (like in
the film “The Matrix”)
• To differentiate Information from Propaganda
we should elevate our level of consciousness
Vote for
me, I shall
make
your
dreams
come true
“Reality” and Belief
• The brain reacts more to what it believes to be reality
• than to the stimuli presented to the senses.
• If, for instance, a black and white image is presented to the
eyes
• and the subject is hypnotised, so that he/she believes that it is
an image in colour,
• the part of the brain that is "illuminated” (the area that perceives
the sensation) in a very sensitive scan
• is the one related to the perception of colour
Placebos
• The placebo effect can be very powerful, it can even produce
side effects
• It has to do with the cultural meaning of the treatment (Beliefs =
the more information, the smaller the effect!).
• Four placebo pills are more effective than two to eradicate
gastric ulcers
• The injection of a saline solution is more effective in treating
pain than sugar pills, due to being a more dramatic intervention.
• The most powerful placebos are:
• the tiniest pill (which suggests a very potent drug)
• or the biggest (suggests a large quantity of drug)
• The colour of the pill also changes the power of the placebo
and the type of action, according to the illness
Self Image
(Believes about oneself)
• A lack of self-esteem appears consistently in psychological
studies among the roots of violent behaviour
• Jane Elliot, a teacher in USA, demonstrated with her
experiment “Blue eyes and brown eyes” that discrimination
leads to a low self-esteem and that this affects the students'
capacity and performance
• She destroyed in this way the racist myth of differences in IQ
among different ethnic groups (she was inspired by ML King)
• And confirmed that encouragement is better than criticism both
at schools and at home
The belief that the oppressor's
destruction produces social change
(resentment and vengeance)…
• E.g.: The Spanish Civil War
song: “When will the day come
that the omelette turns upside
down, that poor people eat
bread and the rich eat shit”
• E.g.: The French revolution
(again)
…generates more violence,
dehumanisation (civilian’s deaths
referred to as “collateral damage”)
and the powerful becoming stronger
The Renaissance
A revolution (almost) without violence
• Changes in the Human Being's position in relation to God,
Nature, the Universe, political and religious power, science and
knowledge, etc,
• Together with changes in the relative position of the sun, the
earth and the planets, even for some, the shape of the planet
• allowed a deeper renovation than anyone achieved through
acts of violence
• The Renaissance created a "human" look, by means of the arts
(Leonardo, Michelangelo) a new religiosity (Erasmus, Bruno),
the study of the humanities (Petrarca) and sciences (Bacon,
Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler) emerging from the human being's
medieval concept of being-for-God. (Pico de la Mirandola)
The space of representation
in the non-violent revolution
Money
• A change in the relative location in our
minds, in education, in TV and at home,
to make the Human being, and not
money, or power, the central value
People
“Nothing above the Human
being, and no Human being
above (or bellow) another”. Silo
The “Other”
• In Charity and NGOs work the “donor” is
often positioned above the “recipient”
• The image of those in need can be
dehumanising (e.g., extreme poverty,
malnutrition, AIDS), and this also puts
them in a different positioning in the S of R
• Recognising the Intentionality of the Other
puts us in the same plane, in a
relationship of co-operation and reciprocity
The Psychology of New Humanism
• Contributes to the non-violent revolution by
making us more aware of the register of
other people's pain created in us by the
image in our S of R of what is happening to
them, which is acting on our own body
• The Human being of the future will rebel
against violence not just as “an idea” but
rather they will feel physical revulsion in
front of it
• Exactly the opposite of violence as
entertainment (dehumanisation), from the
Roman Circus to the video game
Reconciliation
• It doesn't require that anybody puts him/herself above or
below another (as when we ask for forgiveness (*)
• It contemplates the “enemy” as a being with hopes and
frustrations, just like us
• It opens the future toward non-violent conflict resolution
and toward a society for all, without resentment or
justification of violence for the sake of revenge
• We have the tools effect this reconciliation by means of
the work with images in the S of R, with education for
Non-violence and promoting social justice
* Reconciliation as a profound spiritual experience, Silo, Punta de Vacas 5/5/07
The Human being was left in a peripheral
position, minuscule in the cosmos and
observed as any other research “object”
You are here
The Post-Postmodern Re-Renaissance
•
What is new at this time (as new images of the world led to
the Renaissance) that allows us to believe that this is the
moment of the Non Violent Revolution, when Human Beings
leave their violent Pre-history and enter their fully human
History?
1. The way we understand the physical world is changing again,
and with it, our look
2. New paradigms of Time and Space, Matter and Energy:
Relativity and Quantum Mechanics
the structural interconnection of everything
3. A new view of non lineal processes
Chaos Theory (the end of the determinism)
4. The Anthropic Principle
This Universe is so unbelievably improbable
that:
If it were any other way and
if it didn't have an “intention” toward the
development of consciousness,
we would not be here to observe it
5. The Observer as part of the Observation
Cezanne
The quantum investigations
We centre ourselves again on the Human Being
6. The Women's Paradox:
The fight for equality to earn the right to contribute what’s
different
From a male vision to a male/female one (similar to binocular
vision, that allows to have depth)
7. The New Spirituality
Open to believers and non believers, based on experience
8. Technology: Internet, air travel, TV, telecommunications
9. Planetarisation: different from Globalization
convergence of diversity: First planetary civilization
Threats to the whole: The environment and nuclear weapons
10. An Evolutionary Psychology of Non Violence:
Homo Intentional
In Sum
• The Non-Violent Revolution, first proposed by Gandhi,
includes social and personal changes. Non violence is at the
same time objective and methodology, therefore it is of great
coherence
• The necessary psycho-social work to change our images is
not just for the specialists, we all have the capacity to
observe ourselves and to make intentional changes.
• There is no “before” or “after” in social change in relation to
the existential/spiritual one but rather they are both part of
the same process of structural transformation (Like in a
Moebius strip)