Understand Thyself - Habits, Self-Knowledge and the Future of the People

"In the current state of the world, it is apparent that the control we've obtained of physical efforts, warmth, light, energy, etc., without having first secured control of our usage of ourselves is really a hazardous matter. With no control of our use of ourselves, our use of other items is blind; it could cause anything." - Professor John DeweyJohn Dewey was America's most prominent thinker. He was the main proponent of the part of philosophy Pragmatism known and he was also quite significant in the growth of American public education during the first 50% of the twentieth century. Certainly he is generally called the "Father of American Education."The starting offer was written throughout the 1920's and his language now appears a little exotic, specially today whenever we are facing far more deadly threats to your protection than Dewey could ever have imagined.But the material of his caution is more important than ever. Not only do we've get a handle on over possibly far more dangerous systems - biochemical and nuclear for instance - but we also have more powerful way to use them in damaging ways.And not only long-range bombers and missiles. Much cheaper, and similarly effective and more broadly available techniques, are now available to do harm.As we have seen, all that's needed to change a commercial airliner into a lethal weapon of mass destruction is just a few determined persons ready to lose their very own lives. A single enemy is capable of spreading deadly toxin over a massive area using the distinctly low-tech postal system.Dewey talks about acquiring "control of ourselves" if we are to avoid "blind" and "perilous" use of external forces. Just what sort of get a handle on was he thinking of? Adult? Societal? Governmental? Psychological?None of these. Dewey's quotation comes from the introduction to Constructive Conscious Get a grip on of the Individual, a book compiled by Y. Matthias Alexander, the builder of what today is named the Alexander Technique in 1923.What Alexander was concerned about, above all, was the way in which our feelings affect or actual actions; how a way we feel about the way we go affects the quality of that movement.Alexander was an extremely practical and down-to-earth person, not much involved in subjective ideas. His great contribution was the growth of organized and successful operations which normal people might use to enhance the quality of their physical performance in whatever they were doing.Not surprisingly, many of his early students were artists - musicians, dancers, actors - for whom action quality immediately affects the quality and security of these efficiency. Still another group consisted of people experiencing pain - backaches, firm shoulders, and the like. Pain of this sort is often brought on by dysfunctional posture and motion practices which position dangerous tension of the body.Dewey herself initially fell in to this later classification - but he soon identified in Alexander's work potential advantages that went far beyond well-known physical ones he experienced. Three aspects specifically caught his attention:1) The ineffectiveness of what Alexander named "end-gaining" - the pursuit of a target without paying close focus on approach this pursuit is conducted chemin de vie.2) The futility of solving an issue by trying to "fix" one aspect at a time, without taking into consideration of the complicated net of interconnections between them.3) The value of having accurate information regarding how the program is working - of perhaps not being deluded by false conceptions.None of these appears specifically fresh when read as abstract rules. But what Alexander did was discover them in the context of our own mental/physical ("psychophysical" to use the term Alexander liked to use) functioning. And it is in this arena that these concepts are most elusive.To take one example - the "accurate information" problem - it ends up that the majority of us suffer with faulty physical information. Put simply, what we believe we're doing at any moment is usually quite different what what we're actually doing. For example, we may believe we are standing erect when, actually, we are unconsciously pulling ourselves to 1 side or another. Often this is obvious to everyone but ourselves!What does this need to do with the more expensive issues Dewey was anxious about?Well, if we don't know just how we are doing something as basic as position, imagine all another misconceptions about our own functioning that we're experiencing - and how these could easily cause us to act in ways that unintentionally make harm.As Dewey points out, contemporary science allows us to accomplish all sorts of wonderful things, but we're generally unaware of our own habits and ways of doing them. And this ignorance may have devastating effects. To quote Dewey again (from the exact same 1923 Introduction ):"The one element which will be the main instrument in the utilization of all (outside) instruments, namely ourselves, quite simply our own psycho-physical personality... has not been studied as the fundamental instrumentality...Is it not very likely this this failure provides the explanation of why it is that in learning physical causes we have ourselves been so generally acquired by them?"It is one thing to show to need of a to the individual person a the supreme agency in whatever (we) can accomplish...it is another to find the real process by which this greatest of duties can be executed. And this essential factor is strictly what Mr. Alexander has accomplished."