Can the Nightmare Speak: Notes on *Rewriting the Soul*

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Signposts on the Path

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on the soul (5-6)

chapter 1

“Is it real” 8

child abuse as cause 8

schizophrenia (there’s a whole chapter on this right?) 9

dfdfdfdf

on the social construct of disease12

wwer’e all multiple now 17

representation 18

existence vs presence 20

constantly in view ; memory and psychic pain 20

{circular argumentation re memory as key to the soul/why is memory key to the soul, }

chapter 2

control 27

coconciousness, cultivation of alters 27-28

cats fighting under a blanket 27-28

fragment 28, asexual, monopurpose

the law and alters 30

trance, hypnosis 31

alters who do what you can’t, or dont want to 30

 32-33 not like i have a bunch of people in my head, but talking and thinking in different tones and accents, modes of expression,,, permission, uncontrolability

no special problem 36

knowledge as domination, rupture of the knewly known from the expectations of the knowers…38

chapter 17

nothing to teach 234

chapter 18 false conciousness

258 memory—daily life, object permanence

long ago—matter when our beliefs affect other people; wrongly accused. think of the family 258

screen memories, counter memories 259 wrong forgetting  

repression vs suppression

suppression—its fine if it works! 259

various false consciousness, self-knowledge 260

Janet, cultivating false memory 260 (see the chapter on trauma, and the one before it)

 

a counsel of perfection that everyone should understand themselves (be made to understand themselves) to the core 261

suppression as an outside intervention, 261

false conciousness not for janet’s parents, but goddard? different types of deceptive memories.  based on whether we, or she, or her community, would consider it incidental or important…ehhhhh idk thats pretty fuzzy…

embarrassment, utilitarian objections, 262, ghosts returning, tearing at the mind, whether she;s able to fulfill social obligations

is it wrong in itself? 263 

failing to know thyself 263 coherent soul, but i’m not satisfied

western moral tradition

1teleology: to grow to a complete and self aware person

2nominalism, memory is a criterion for personal identity

3autonomy, responsible for constructing our moral selves

4memory politics : a person/soul=constituted by memories and character

ownership and having oneself stolen 264

bernice’s autonomy is already reduced by her economic situation

kant, rousseau, and foucoult overcome the greek idea of  pre-determined end, the self-ending creature, we must choose our ends (recursion, paradox follow) 264

goddard precluded bernice from such freedom 265

“autonomy is not comfortable” 265

“a self to which it would be worth her while to be true” 265

truer self consciousness may or may not be happier or even better life 265

self knowledge is a virtue in its own right 265 (why?)\ self understanding of past interlocking tendencies and gifts, aristotelian image of growth and maturing, modest, not seeking to find meaning beyond life but finding excellence in ling and honoring life and its potentialities…

is it real? opponents are talking about treatment, don’t cultivate alters. proponents: thats benign neglect, get stuck 

name change: get away from solidified alters, agents who cope; emphasize disintegration, loss of wholeness, absence {rather then overpopulation?) of person, which some patients exhibit 266

cautious skeptics conservative? critics of the multiple movement who try to help patients who have been poorly served towards false memories, less concerned about what is real, rather, concern about alters as a stepstone towards belief in abuse?

they accept the patient produced this version of herself, a narrative with dramatic events, cauusal story, account of relationships between alters. a self consciousness, a soul. they respect the clinicians who can ease pain and help them function 266 but they fear it leads to false consciousness,; the memories might be true, but rather that the end product is a thoroughly crafted person, but not a person who serves the ends for which we are persons. not a person with self knowledge, but a person who is worse for having a glib patter that simulates an understanding of herself. … retroactive narrative in which the patient gendered femenine was the weak vessel

false consciousness is contrary to growth and maturing of a person who knows herself, contrary to philosophical freedom, contrary to our best vision of what it is to be a human being.

{is it contrary to these things? i don’t see that it necessarily is

{should we value these ends of freedom, self knowledge, right humaness in particular? i’m not sure that we should

{doesn’t it denaturalize the multiples and naturalizes the singletons? 

{how do people become singletons in the first place

{who will speak for our nightmare selves?

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!review the constitution on good reads

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that was some good note gathering, i might do a freewrite in a bit