reducing

ne	reducing ration what is good, in order to keep below acceptable limits

negative thinking > achieving negative goals > reducing

Many problems are caused not by essence, but by excess. Heraclitus says: ‘It is not better for human beings to get all that they want.’ A return to the simple life will solve all our problems.

‘To simplify a problem to the point that it can be lived with may be almost as good as solving it. … [But] it is tempting to believe that perhaps complementarity between simplicity on one level and complexity on another always exists.’ [Slobodkin]

Demand
for
natural
resources negative thinking > examples > green thinking

Guilt A commonly used mechanism for limiting oneself (and others) is guilt. This is a clumsy device since it merely opposes one qualitative desire with another qualitative desire (or anti-desire). Supposedly, women are torn between anorexia/frigidity and obesity/nymphomania. Feminists see guilt as a male stratagem for controlling women, but it may also be seen as a general stratagem for people of either sex to control themselves and one another.

Cutting
down to
size At a personal level: Slimming. Dieting. Anorexia.
At an organizational level: Corporate anorexia, downsizing and obsessive cost control.
‘What is below is decreased, to the benefit of what is above.’

Potlatch The ritual destruction of consumer goods, practised by affluent elites in some societies. Lacan cites some examples from the twelfth century [Seminar VII].

Fasting Doing without food, as a spiritual or aesthetic gesture. In other words, this is not done purely for its effect on the body, but for its effect on the spirit or soul.

Page last updated on December 18th, 2000
Copyright © 2000, Richard Veryard

Demand for natural resources	negative thinking > examples > green thinking
Guilt	A commonly used mechanism for limiting oneself (and others) is guilt. This is a clumsy device since it merely opposes one qualitative desire with another qualitative desire (or anti-desire). Supposedly, women are torn between anorexia/frigidity and obesity/nymphomania. Feminists see guilt as a male stratagem for controlling women, but it may also be seen as a general stratagem for people of either sex to control themselves and one another.
Cutting down to size	At a personal level: Slimming. Dieting. Anorexia. At an organizational level: Corporate anorexia, downsizing and obsessive cost control. ‘What is below is decreased, to the benefit of what is above.’
Potlatch	The ritual destruction of consumer goods, practised by affluent elites in some societies. Lacan cites some examples from the twelfth century [Seminar VII].
Fasting	Doing without food, as a spiritual or aesthetic gesture. In other words, this is not done purely for its effect on the body, but for its effect on the spirit or soul.