The Return of eLf ideas

ideas of an eLven being in Canada

Monday, October 24, 2005

"Thinking is the function by which one tells what a thing is

..
It gives a name to the thing. It adds a concept, because thinking is perception and judgment."

Chancing upon a blog entry by Ian Rosales Casocot criticizing Imelda Marcos's implying that she has been instrumental in the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, prompted me to write my own short critique.

Here's an excerpt from Casocot's satirical blog entry entitled "St. Imelda of Cold War":

"This is classic Jessica Zafra humor," writes Casocot; "this time, on the beautiful delusions of our Imelda Marcos:

"'All this talk of the Imelda reminded me that I still have my friend's copy of the Imelda's latest literary opus, a metaphysical discourse called "Circles of Life." While leafing through this handsome volume—the pages are guilt, I mean gilt-edged—I came upon a revelation most wondrous. Here it is, in the Imelda's own words:

"'But the most significant and most exacting for me was the honor of having brought the image of Our Lady of Fatima to be consecrated with the Liturgical Service in Moscow at the height of the Cold War. That was 1985, October, the month of the Holy Rosary, and as I left the Church together with a large retinue of Catholic bishops from the Philippines, a spray of snowfall descended on our (delegation), when (an) old woman sidled close and whispered: 'Madam, for the blessings you have brought to Russia by opening our church to honor the Virgin Mother, much will be exacted from your life!'

"Those anonymous words were prophetic. In a few months, we were forced into exile, and shortly thereafter, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics began to dissolve and the freedom of religion was restored along with other fundamental liberties... It symbolized the sacrifices expected of my own life, the life of my husband, the lives of my children, my country and my people.'" (p. 91)

$$
Imelda, in the above, reminds me of a particular passage from the book Jung, which I finished reading a few days ago...

on p. 32 of Jung, the author, Anthony Storr, wrote:
"Just as schizophrenics are attempting to create a world system which enable them 'to assimilate unknown psychic phenomena and so adapt themselves to their own world' so the myths of primitive people were devices enabling them better to adapt themselves to their world.

"As an example of what Jung meant, one might quote from his visit to the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico. These people believe (or, as Jung might have put it 'live by myth' that) the sun is their father. Moreover, they also affirm that, by practicing the rites of their religion, they assist the sun to perform his daily journey across the sky. By punctiliously performing these rites, they are thus benefiting the whole world.

"If a myth can give life dignity, meaning, and purpose, it is serving an important positive function, even if it is not objectively true.

"However, unlike the myths of such 'primitive' people that work for them positively by enabling them better to adapt to the world, the delusions of the schizophrenics are myths as well but of a kind which does not work."

NOW, I wonder what personality type Imelda Marcos was projecting: a primitive person living by her own myth to enable herself better to adapt to the real world or a schizophrenic forever stuck on her delusions of grandeur and martyrdom?

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