Dr. Alexander Flynt

Beyond appreciating those doing kindness and keeping tolerance and openness alive by and for others—I am, and have been, asking for a renewed academic understanding of this “creative” approach to life against a background of “overwhelmed,” “satisfied,” “regimented,” and “amorphous” belief-systems.

We live at a time of strong emotional separation within societies, such that people are having a hard time developing conditions of understanding and cooperation—even when it may be in their interest to do so. This is an effort toward a comprehensive and integrated way of explaining this happening.

It is addressed to teachers, students, and thinkers interested in understanding primary human thought through its three phases—from a person’s first awareness, to their finding of an acceptable religion or philosophy, and finally to the types of cultural approaches that tend to follow therefrom.

When I first led discussions involving religion or philosophy, I found people adamantly choosing sides before a full range of possibilities could be laid out. I later overcame this by developing a more neutral approach—starting with “classes of interpretive mentalities’’ prior to specific beliefs.

Behind this is a theory recognizing that—in promoting a “sharable” understanding of an issue of concern, people use a problem/answer approach. They combine an assertion of concern with an assertion of how it is to be responded to—as with an artistic approach embodying both a need and how to meet it.

At the most comprehensive level, depending on how they are primarily disposed, people differ in their acceptance of belief-systems as they read the human condition and how God or reason would have one respond to it—including extending their logics into the forms and functions of cultural features.

The range of belief-system types can be presented in problem/answer terms (i.e., {1} total problem/partial answer, {2} partial problem/total answer, {3} total problem/total answer, {4} partial problem/partial answer, and {5} no problem/no answer)—as life-orienting world-views one might lean toward.

Representing primary or cosmic-level mentalities, these five problem/answer patterns can be referred to descriptively as “overwhelmed,” “satisfied,” “regimented,” “creative,” or “amorphous” world-outlooks respectively—and can be remembered by their initials making up the acronym “OSCAR.”

Finally, the logics of such world-outlook classes become reflected in key cultural features—as in Art, Reason, Education, Warfare, Ethics, Psychology, Inventiveness, Government, Law, Industriousness, Class Structure, and Economics. These can be remembered by their initials: “ARE WE PIG LICE.”

By thinking through the letters “OSCAR, ARE WE PIG LICE,” individuals from high school to the advanced graduate level can be reminded of a spectrum of meanings and values central to the humanities and social sciences for which people might live or die for—or send their children to live or die for.

Illustrating the content of my theory, I am offering the reader a download of 35 pages (reduced from 1,200 pages) as a minimal presentation of its full range which can be endlessly built upon. (Please search “Alexander Flynt” {spelled with a “y,” not an “i”} and then go to the second “download.”)

Toward a Scholarly Understanding of Humanity’s Deepest Divisions.

—this post is the first in a 10-part threaded sequence; see replies for subsequent parts

As with a directional map, these classes can be contrasted even-handedly (in problem/answer terms)—as mentalities that can be tended toward or away from by degrees (like north or north-east) or intensity of commitment (from acceptance out of practical considerations to wholly unshakable adherence).

Representing primary or cosmic level mentalities, these five problem/answer patterns can be referred to descriptively as “overwhelmed,” “satisfied,” “regimented,” “creative,” or “amorphous” world-outlooks respectively—and can be remembered by their initials making up the acronym “OSCAR.”

These contending belief patterns can be characterized in problem/answer terms, i.e.: (1) total problem/partial answer, (2) partial problem/total answer, (3) total problem/total answer, (4) partial problem/partial answer, (5) no problem/no answer (as a cosmic truth to be respected and lived up to).

It is as if these classes represented distinct band widths. In laying out these classes to form an analytical framework, we find that there are five directions (or combined directions) that mentalities may tend toward or away from—a central position, and four outer positions like poles on a map.

Flynt's Philosophical Garden Sculpture, introducing the world-outlook fi.

As with a directional map, these classes can be contrasted even-handedly (in problem/answer terms)—as mentalities that can be tended toward or away from by degrees (like north or north-east) or intensity of commitment (from acceptance out of practical considerations to wholly unshakable adherence).

Stated differently, although humanity (as a whole) interprets the world by the light of a full spectrum of human nature, at an individual level, each person receives the light of but a limited part of this more extensive spectrum. This leaves people divided by degrees within “classes” of certainty.

Summerizing quotes from such philosophers as Johann Gottlieb Fichte, David Hume, and William James (1st download) we find individuals differing—with those of the strongest beliefs unable to accept certain contrary interpretations of life’s meaning and condition—and beyond all persuasion or coercion.

Illustrating the development of my theory, I offer the reader a download of 35 pages (reduced from 12,000 pages) as a minimal presentation of my material which can be endlessly built upon. (Best kept available in areas with limited internets, by searching my name and opening the second “download”.)

What I am offering for comments and criticisms are the most comprehensive concerns of the humanities and social sciences—as understandable within one “grand unified theory”—such as has been sought within the natural sciences. Similarly, I am bringing together known, but fragmented, connections.

This extends our comprehensive framework to include explanations and examples of how competing variations of truth, logic, and aspiration come to extend recognizably into the forms and functions of such universal cultural features as art, law, reason, and more.

We are talking about what leads to primary thinking and behavior sensed as “true and reasonable” for oneself and others—such as might find expression in religious, philosophical, or ideological terms—open to be shared with others from a small group to a whole civilization.