constant escape
winter withered, warm
edit: "Psychotopography" (the mapping of psychic locations/places) has been reconfigured as "Ismonautics" (the exploration of ideologies).
Psychotopography would consist of the plotting of courses from one psychic place/state, or topos, to another.
This would include, but may not necessarily be limited to, ideological states. That is, it would consist of identifying the networking routes of psychic development.
Political radicalization is a psychic development, one that can, perhaps, be figured as centrifugal, seeing as it is bound toward some extremity, which is definitively opposed to the center. I don't know if these developments exist as natural routes of egress (lines of flight?) or if they are artificial, willfully and painstakingly engineered by psychotopographers.
That said, radicalization is not the only kind of development that is possible to chart, as far as I can tell. But a glaring difficulty prevents further elaboration upon this point. Psychotopography requires one see through their current psychic state, identify it as a natural impression made by their circumstances (environmental, historical, emotional, genetic, etc.), and attempt to change it.
In effect, because of how forceful and (almost) insurmountable circumstances can be, the psyche is usually far from being in control of its trajectories. Subject to internal forces (compulsions?) and external forces (obligations?), the will alone often finds itself with little room to breathe, much less diagnose its situation and plot and execute a course. Even if such a course is plotted and set out upon, the degree to which the psyche is carried against its will by its beliefs is the degree to which it remains passive. How does desire fit into this framework? Do ones beliefs set the terms for their desires, or is there more conflict than that?
The psychotopographer would need to identify their belief-structure as finely as possible, identify the stimuli-response relations that inform beliefs, and begin to steer such relations in such a way as to affect themselves in the intended manner. Forgive me, this is where it drops off into second-order pragmatism. One would need to shift gears between operating under their beliefs and operating above their beliefs. This can be effectively configured, I believe, in a dialectical manner, which can, much like a piston can effectively turn a wheel using only a bilateral movement (?), result in a certain momentum that may render such projects feasible.
What would the tasks of psychotopography be? I will give examples of ideologically oriented projects, rather than purely emotional ones. Such tasks would require, to some extent, that the psychotopographer engage in routine patrolling of ideological terrain. That is to say, they would need to be able to see the world from as many ideological perspectives as possible, and periodically cycle through them as one would patrol a territory in search of anomalies or potential dangers.
This kind of patrol would, more or less, be the equilibrium state. However, seeing as the various ideological adherents of our world are virtually never in willful harmony, such a pure equilibrium state is virtually nonexistent. The psychotopographer would take recourse to their familiarity with the varying languages of ideologies, as well as their familiarity with common dialectics between pairs of ideologies, and would attempt to anticipate the evolution of ideological conflicts, surveying for especially catastrophic potential. If adherents of a certain ideology seem to be building toward some kind of violent eruption, how can that energy be channelled into a more benign direction? What kinds of routes can be established so as to poke a hole in the bubble before its pressure builds to dangerous levels?
Realistic implementation: recruitment of open-minded bridge-builders to... engage in conversation? A vanguard party of metapolitical agents? Hmm.
Hopefully, this may enable something more than a hypertheorized self-help program, as funny as that would be.
Psychotopography would consist of the plotting of courses from one psychic place/state, or topos, to another.
This would include, but may not necessarily be limited to, ideological states. That is, it would consist of identifying the networking routes of psychic development.
Political radicalization is a psychic development, one that can, perhaps, be figured as centrifugal, seeing as it is bound toward some extremity, which is definitively opposed to the center. I don't know if these developments exist as natural routes of egress (lines of flight?) or if they are artificial, willfully and painstakingly engineered by psychotopographers.
That said, radicalization is not the only kind of development that is possible to chart, as far as I can tell. But a glaring difficulty prevents further elaboration upon this point. Psychotopography requires one see through their current psychic state, identify it as a natural impression made by their circumstances (environmental, historical, emotional, genetic, etc.), and attempt to change it.
In effect, because of how forceful and (almost) insurmountable circumstances can be, the psyche is usually far from being in control of its trajectories. Subject to internal forces (compulsions?) and external forces (obligations?), the will alone often finds itself with little room to breathe, much less diagnose its situation and plot and execute a course. Even if such a course is plotted and set out upon, the degree to which the psyche is carried against its will by its beliefs is the degree to which it remains passive. How does desire fit into this framework? Do ones beliefs set the terms for their desires, or is there more conflict than that?
The psychotopographer would need to identify their belief-structure as finely as possible, identify the stimuli-response relations that inform beliefs, and begin to steer such relations in such a way as to affect themselves in the intended manner. Forgive me, this is where it drops off into second-order pragmatism. One would need to shift gears between operating under their beliefs and operating above their beliefs. This can be effectively configured, I believe, in a dialectical manner, which can, much like a piston can effectively turn a wheel using only a bilateral movement (?), result in a certain momentum that may render such projects feasible.
What would the tasks of psychotopography be? I will give examples of ideologically oriented projects, rather than purely emotional ones. Such tasks would require, to some extent, that the psychotopographer engage in routine patrolling of ideological terrain. That is to say, they would need to be able to see the world from as many ideological perspectives as possible, and periodically cycle through them as one would patrol a territory in search of anomalies or potential dangers.
This kind of patrol would, more or less, be the equilibrium state. However, seeing as the various ideological adherents of our world are virtually never in willful harmony, such a pure equilibrium state is virtually nonexistent. The psychotopographer would take recourse to their familiarity with the varying languages of ideologies, as well as their familiarity with common dialectics between pairs of ideologies, and would attempt to anticipate the evolution of ideological conflicts, surveying for especially catastrophic potential. If adherents of a certain ideology seem to be building toward some kind of violent eruption, how can that energy be channelled into a more benign direction? What kinds of routes can be established so as to poke a hole in the bubble before its pressure builds to dangerous levels?
Realistic implementation: recruitment of open-minded bridge-builders to... engage in conversation? A vanguard party of metapolitical agents? Hmm.
Hopefully, this may enable something more than a hypertheorized self-help program, as funny as that would be.
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