Re: [ox-en] selbstentfaltung revisited
- From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
- Date: Tue, 22 Jun 2010 09:27:39 +0200
Hi Graham, StefanMz, all!
First of all: Thanks Graham for this important question. Indeed I
think it is a key piece of theory in Oekonux and I feel that it may be
the hardest to understand. Also thanks to StefanMz for the
explanation. See my cent below.
As far as the *word* "Selbstentfaltung" goes I see it as a technical
term which nowadays most prominently comes from the Oekonux debate and
has been filled by the Oekonux debate with a very specific meaning
which is also not common in the German language. So if you google for
Selbstentfaltung you will probably end up in very different debates.
2 weeks (20 days) ago Robin Upton wrote:
I had previously parsed Selbstentfaltung as
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-actualization
which wikipedia translates more accurately
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selbstverwirklichung
The two are closely related; Selbstentfaltung emphasising the change of the
individual while Selbstverwirklichung stressing connection to the
world outside.
I know StefanMz won't like this ;-) , but to me the explanation given
in the English Wikipedia article mentions concepts which IMHO are also
important for Selbstentfaltung - namely individual growth. However, I
fully agree with StefanMz that Self-Actualization /
Selbstverwirklichung neglects the societal aspect of humans - which of
course is a key idea for Selbstentfaltung. Thus I'm not using
Self-Actualization / Selbstverwirklichung - or only in a negative
sense.
Last week (10 days ago) Stefan Meretz wrote:
you are right: Selbstentfaltung is an open question, however, not only
in english, but even in german. What I can do is to provide some pieces
and ideas to this debate.
I remember very well the workshop StefanMz gave some years ago on
Holzkamp's main book ("Grundlegung der Psychologie" IIRC, i.e.
"Fundaments(?) of psychology"). In this book Holzkamp researched how
the psyche came about. Here the germ form idea is formulated including
the five steps - although for biological evolution. It was indeed
StefanMz who expanded this model to societal development. Personally
I'd say it is a very good model to understand why and how change
happens in any field of life.
And in this book is also a motivation *why* Selbstentfaltung came
about and why it is an inalienable feature of humans. Unfortunately
the reasoning for this is rather long and unfortunately I think it can
not be shortened very much :-/ . But it would be worth a try so this
important idea is accessible to more people!
Why is a notion of Selbstentfaltung so important?
For our debate I find the concept of Selbstentfaltung absolutely
central because it gives us a concept of humans beyond the "man is the
wolf of man" - being the defining concept of capitalism. If you don't
understand this concept and or do not believe in it's capability then
IMHO you *have to* end up in alienated structures. Without
Selbstentfaltung you simply need an alienated force to keep the social
fabric together - be it explicit or structural force.
Grüße
Stefan