Part Object

In psychiatry, especially psychoanalysis and obviously the school of object relations, object refers roughly to ‘person’.  Freud conceptualized the ego, id and super ego which were later broadened to mean child, adult and parent or society.  Jung conceptualized the persona, the face we know and show the world, the shadow, the unconscious we don’t know or don’t show and the animus and anima, female and masculine parts along with archetypes the parts or phases of the person representing judge, heirophant, empress etc, much like the characters of the tarot deck taken from medieval cultural religious reflection,

These ideas were also linked to notion of development, the progress of the child to the adult and a linear development with various stages most represented by the work of Erik Erickson and Maslow.  

The part object as opposed to the ‘whole object’ is a dynamic especially today in the consumer society and increasing robotiziation of society with development of legalistic politic terms like ‘boundaries’ to reduce relationships between people.  The ‘part object’ is best represented by the consumer item of the ‘sex doll’ or ‘prostitute’ or labourer.  In this dyadic transactional social construct the buyer requests a ‘part’ , sex, or surgery, or the waitress from the other person and not ‘themselves’.  The employer or boss can be a ‘whole person’ but the employees are mere functional objects who performe one factory activity. John is no longer john but the ‘button pusher’.  In the military, the ‘grunt’ is the ‘rifle’ .  In Vietnam war the limited value of the person is no one wished to know the ‘new guys’ name as the turn over was so severe.

Boundaries make the workplace safe but the workplace of the medieval village was the home.  The workplace of the tribal society was also the home The workplace separation and partition of society like the invídias occurred with the ‘part object’. 

In Good Life the latest glimpse into the continuing Harvard Grant Study begun with the graduating class of Harvard 1940 the latest insight into longevity was the critical importance of ‘community’.  Community like home was normal in the tribals, agrarian and craft societies only becoming avoidable in the industrial and post industrial age of post modernism or ultramodernism. 

My elderly patient talks to the barista when he gets his morning coffee. She knows his name, the name of his children as he knows her name and the latest boy she is dating and that her friend Carly and her share cats and have cat dates.  The employer, the boss man, is hoping to replace her with machines as the main stores have done introducing self checkout.  Doctors who once lived in the community of their patients who knew them and their families as their patients knew them are advised only  ‘sell’ the drugs’ and ‘sell the procedures’ .

In psychoanalysis women were discouraged from wearing wedding rings or distinctive clothing as the work of the therapist was to establish a ‘blank slate’ and create a setting for reflection with reduced sensory input and provide a ‘hypnosis’ prone environment for the exploration of the unconscious.  

The psychoanalysit wish the patient to ‘project’ their ideas of this ‘stranger’ so the therapist could ‘interpret’ and explore with the patient the prevailing projections which carried over from the past especially from the traumas of childhood.

Today knowing the pharmacist is pro euthanasia for the elderly would be more protective for the patient than the pharmacist presenting as a blank slate.  However if the Lordco parts man’s sole job is to be inhuman with corporate ‘boundaries’ and anagrams of behaviour then of course they can be replaced by a machine.  

The efficacy of AI medical models have turned out to be less than 50 % and far less accurate than the doctors. The judge however’s capacity to identify truthfulness is no greater than the machine.  Even lie detector machines can be ‘beaten’.  The consumer society though is less interested in accuracy or truth because the numbers are not individual but rather patterns of large groups, actuarial.  

Stalin is credited as winning against Germany on the Eastern front but only because he sacrificed ‘hoards’ of men and equipment .  Studies of military leaders with untreated PTSD show that they can compete in war games but sacrifice life at an extraordinary rate.  Being a robot doesn’t improve of the success but depends upon numbers and crunching numbers rather than the brilliance associated with the novel.

Studies of pre industrial society show that there was open conversation about sex and death and violence and all else.  The diversity and creativity of later ‘circles’ like Virginia Wolf’s and the Huxley show that the whole idea of ‘boundaries’ and ‘reductionism’ and ‘part object’ were the opposite of what was sought.  Openness was beyon censorship. Stagnation is what occurred in closed censored societies and this is appearing most to the consumer society model with the part objects.  Corporations which in the law are e persons are in deed not. The idea of human becomes like their corporate part object consstuct is seen now with society reduced to laws and boundaries and individuals judged by social credits, ‘community standards better called ‘fashions’ that restrict individuals to ‘part object’ status.  This is in no way an ‘inclusive society’. 

AI is purely a part object

The psychopath is inherently a ‘part object’ becausee he/she lacks empathy , like the machine.

Communism is god less, the ideal a parody of 19th century rationalism.  The military industrial complex is of course a part object measured by ‘body counts’ . War is truly part objects while only in peace and love can one pass beyond boundaries to the grace of self actualization and full object participation in what increasingly becomes the ‘flow’ and ‘objects’s give way to the new idea of ‘personhood’.  Enlightenment.