Hi Jason, it’s the last chapter of my new book, Consciousness and Loneliness: Theoria and Praxis (Brill, De., 2018). It’s very expensive, 500 pages. You might try to get your university libtary to order it. Ben
- Jason Bartholomew HallApr 17, 2019Thank you for your reply.
I was wondering, as part of my M.A I am enabling humans to experience Bonobo culture in order to help with their consciousness around belonging.
I would be interested in talking more with you if possible.
Here is the website:
http://www.thebonoboexperience.org
Let me know what you think?
Kind regards
Jason Hall - Ben Mijuskovicto youApr 17, 2019Basically loneliness is constituted by feelings or thoughts of unresolved separation–psychic and/or physical. Sexual intimacy it seems reduces loneliness but so does emotional sharing. The most extreme forms of loneliness are constituted by a loss of trust, a sense of rejection, or abandonment. Anything that decreases that sense of doomed aloneness and leads to a diminution of the sense of separation will result in positive outcomes. Harry Harlow conducted a series of primate experiments with rhesus monkeys that deprived the infant monkeys of motherly nurturance and the consequences were disastrous, including self-mutilation and unbridled aggression.
- Jason Bartholomew HallApr 19, 2019Dear Ben,
Thank you so much for your response, it’s very enlightening and will help me develop my research.
What are your thoughts on how female bonobos manage there troops?
For me I sense that because bonobo males maintain a primary bond to the mother loneliness is avoided and doesn’t turn to aggression.
I have this notion that humans are separated subtly from their mother as it is deemed queer, I sense fear from the father that the boy needs to play competitive sport and not be home with mum.
I also recognise that the system in which we operate is wrapped in loss and separation.
We are born into a tribe that we are told we need to leave. We are encouraged into the wilderness to compete for females. We then create our own tribe that will eventually leave us to Create their own.
It’s all about loss and separation right?
Jason - Ben Mijuskovicto youApr 19, 2019Yes, it is all about separation. Not to get too technical about it, but according to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, self-consciousness is “constituted” by a synthetic a priori relation of subject-object separation within consciousness. For Hegel, the infant begins with Sense-Certainty, no distinction, separation between the self and the external world. So Freud with the “oceanic feeling.” Then it first separates its self from the external world of objects. And next it separates its self from the mother (Kant). Margaret Mead, an anthropologist, wrote a book many years ago, Sex and Temperament, in which she argued that gentleness and aggression were environmentally conditioned. She studied three tribes, the Mundugumore, the Arapesh, and the Kwakiutl (?). I have an article, “Organic Communities, Atomistic Societies, and Loneliness,” Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare”; it’s a PDF.
- Jason Bartholomew HallJun 13, 2019Hello Ben,
thank you for sharing your time and knowledge with me. I would very much like to read the “Organic Communities, Atomistic Societies, and Loneliness,” Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare”;PDF if possible
Bonobo Experience 