removing

ne	removing eliminate or escape the system altogether

negative thinking > achieving negative goals > removing

Removal is the complete and permanent separation or disconnection of the problem from the problem-owner. This may either mean removing the problem from the problem owner (elimination) or removing the problem-owner from the problem (escape).

If you hold it, it will stay; if you let go, it will disappear. [Confucius]

Contrast this with replacement which means putting something else in the place of the problem, or putting the problem in another place, or both. Contrast it also with retreat, which is usually temporary, pending a returm with renewed strength (for example in military or spiritual contexts)..

Removal is a form of separation or division. There are some praiseworthy examples (see below), and also some reprehensible ones. The stratagem itself seems to be morally neutral.

Permanent removal is a solution that works more in the imagination than in reality. Fantasies and fears of removal abound, both individual and collective; ineffective and even counter-productive actions are often triggered by such fantasies of removal.

One of the commonest ways for this stratagem to fail is where the element to be eliminated is falsely identified. Instead of eliminating the true cause for the problem, we attack a symptom or scapegoat. This leads to repetition: as long as the true cause remains unrecognized, we will find ourselves continually faced with new symptoms, new scapegoats, and we are on an endless cycle of removal.

Surgery Surgery is a physical act of intervention into the human body, usually involving either the removal of non-essential or malignant matter, or the replacement of essential organs. (See also repair.)
Body parts may be removed because they are already causing trouble, or they may be removed because they represent a risk.
Sometimes it is sufficient to remove a part for the whole. (This is known as synechdoche.) Thus the ‘problem’ of undesired fertility may be solved by removing the whole organ (castration), or by removing a small part of the tube that connects the organ to the site of fertilization (vasectomy).

Conflict
removal "Conflict is dissipated in much the same way as is the tension of a spring when you melt the mechanism (or dissolve it in nitric acid). This dissolution eliminates all tensions." [Wittgenstein]

Temptation ‘Lead me not into temptation …’
How can I lose weight when there is a fridge full of ice cream and other snacks? One stratagem is to remove oneself from the source of temptation, by emptying the fridge, or fitting a time lock. Similarly, if you want to give up booze, then give away all your bottles.

Walking
away If only it were that simple. Most interesting mental problems don’t lend themselves to simple removal.
One view of psychoanalysis is that it is a way of getting neurotics to abandon certain of their opinions and fantasies (mostly those about sex and death). The comparison is with Socrates, whose method was to analyse someone’s opinions, with the aim of discarding those opinions that don’t work, thus giving birth to the truth. (Socrates plays the role of the midwife, as does the psychoanalyst.)
But there is nothing that neurotics hate more than to give up their fantasies. [Bernard Burgoyne]

Suicide Suicide is a way for a distressed person to remove himself or herself from the problem. Almost always, however, this is seen as a message to those remaining alive, as if to hand over the problem. It may be intended to be just such a message. Thus the problem itself doesn’t go away, it attaches itself to others, who are intended to suffer guilt for the remainder of their lives.

Symbolic
removal One of the central fears of small boys, according to Freud, is castration. Furthermore, this fear survives into adulthood, albeit in a variety of sublimated forms.
It has been argued, especially by Jungians, that part of the function of puberty rituals in primitive tribes is to deal with this fear. The boy suffers a trivial wound - a tooth is knocked out, the face is scarred or tattooed - which is a symbolic castration. Circumcision can also be seen as a symbolic castration - especially when it is practised at puberty rather than infancy.
Thus symbolic removal removes the fear of removal by enacting the removal in a symbolic manner.

Divorce If a marital relationship isn’t working, it may often seem that the best way to solve the problem is to separate from your partner. If the problem is wholly located in the partner, this may be the right solution. But of course, this is rarely if ever true.
What happens when you enter another relationship? For many people, the same problems reemerge with the new partner. Temporary separation from all partnership provides a space in which the person can free himself or herself from inappropriate patterns of relating to others, but most people fail to take advantage of this opportunity, and enter the next relationship encumbered with the same expectations, destined to repeat the same patterns.

Punishment Capital punishment permanently removes the criminal from society. Imprisonment or exile temporarily removes the criminal from society. This supposedly makes a repetition of the crime impossible until the sentence is served. (In the electronic age, of course, certain types of crime can be continued from behind bars or from overseas.)
Arguments for particular forms of punishment (including capital punishment) fall into three categories:

Effect on the future actions of the criminal.

Effect on the future actions of other would-be criminals.

Effect on society. This may be described in terms of moral rightness or vindication.

Removing the criminal from society protects society in two ways. Not only is the criminal prevented from offending again, but society (including the direct victims of the criminal’s actions) is saved from any other encounter with the criminal. Furthermore, in the case of crime that arouses strong public anger (such as violence towards children), the criminal may gain protection from revenge attacks (including violence from fellow prisoners), as well as from the temptation to re-offend.

Self-
castration In some societies, political power for the lowborn was only available to eunuchs. Monarchs delegated political power (which often implied free run of the palace) more readily to those without biological power. (This was because there was less risk of the minister fornicating the king’s wives and/or concealing dynastic ambitions of his own.) Therefore some ambitious men became eunuchs voluntarily. (Perhaps in some ways this is no worse than celibacy - but who am I to judge this?)
This counts as doing away with the non-essential, in order to gain the essential. (There are certainly some points of view that would regard political power as more essential than sexual enjoyment.)

Ethnic
cleansing At the social level, removal is often a morally repugnant stratagem. It appears as total exclusion of and separation from the Other, in the form of genocide or forced migration.
Conversely, threatened ethnic groups often themselves cluster into ghettos.

Cathar
heresy The Cathars were a mediæval sect who believed that the world was corrupt. They sought to avoid any act that might in any way favour the perpetuation of the world. Denounced as heresy by the religious establishment of the time, they were themselves eliminated. Furthermore, to compound this elimination, practically all traces of this heresy (and the Inquisition trials) were erased from recorded history, so that their ideas have vanished almost as effectively as their physical bodies. But not quite: determined historians have managed to piece together a reasonably plausible story.
The story here is one of mutual rejection and attempted elimination: the Cathars reject but do not eliminate the world; the world rejects and successfully eliminates the Cathars.
Eastern religions have often adopted this view, although rarely taking it to the same logical extreme as the Cathars. Buddhism, for example, can be seen as a form of the same belief structure.

Page last updated on January 22nd, 2001
Copyright © 2000, 2001 Richard Veryard

Surgery	Surgery is a physical act of intervention into the human body, usually involving either the removal of non-essential or malignant matter, or the replacement of essential organs. (See also repair.) Body parts may be removed because they are already causing trouble, or they may be removed because they represent a risk. Sometimes it is sufficient to remove a part for the whole. (This is known as synechdoche.) Thus the ‘problem’ of undesired fertility may be solved by removing the whole organ (castration), or by removing a small part of the tube that connects the organ to the site of fertilization (vasectomy).
Conflict removal	"Conflict is dissipated in much the same way as is the tension of a spring when you melt the mechanism (or dissolve it in nitric acid). This dissolution eliminates all tensions." [Wittgenstein]
Temptation	‘Lead me not into temptation …’ How can I lose weight when there is a fridge full of ice cream and other snacks? One stratagem is to remove oneself from the source of temptation, by emptying the fridge, or fitting a time lock. Similarly, if you want to give up booze, then give away all your bottles.
Walking away	If only it were that simple. Most interesting mental problems don’t lend themselves to simple removal. One view of psychoanalysis is that it is a way of getting neurotics to abandon certain of their opinions and fantasies (mostly those about sex and death). The comparison is with Socrates, whose method was to analyse someone’s opinions, with the aim of discarding those opinions that don’t work, thus giving birth to the truth. (Socrates plays the role of the midwife, as does the psychoanalyst.) But there is nothing that neurotics hate more than to give up their fantasies. [Bernard Burgoyne]
Suicide	Suicide is a way for a distressed person to remove himself or herself from the problem. Almost always, however, this is seen as a message to those remaining alive, as if to hand over the problem. It may be intended to be just such a message. Thus the problem itself doesn’t go away, it attaches itself to others, who are intended to suffer guilt for the remainder of their lives.
Symbolic removal	One of the central fears of small boys, according to Freud, is castration. Furthermore, this fear survives into adulthood, albeit in a variety of sublimated forms. It has been argued, especially by Jungians, that part of the function of puberty rituals in primitive tribes is to deal with this fear. The boy suffers a trivial wound - a tooth is knocked out, the face is scarred or tattooed - which is a symbolic castration. Circumcision can also be seen as a symbolic castration - especially when it is practised at puberty rather than infancy. Thus symbolic removal removes the fear of removal by enacting the removal in a symbolic manner.
Divorce	If a marital relationship isn’t working, it may often seem that the best way to solve the problem is to separate from your partner. If the problem is wholly located in the partner, this may be the right solution. But of course, this is rarely if ever true. What happens when you enter another relationship? For many people, the same problems reemerge with the new partner. Temporary separation from all partnership provides a space in which the person can free himself or herself from inappropriate patterns of relating to others, but most people fail to take advantage of this opportunity, and enter the next relationship encumbered with the same expectations, destined to repeat the same patterns.
Punishment	Capital punishment permanently removes the criminal from society. Imprisonment or exile temporarily removes the criminal from society. This supposedly makes a repetition of the crime impossible until the sentence is served. (In the electronic age, of course, certain types of crime can be continued from behind bars or from overseas.) Arguments for particular forms of punishment (including capital punishment) fall into three categories: Effect on the future actions of the criminal. Effect on the future actions of other would-be criminals. Effect on society. This may be described in terms of moral rightness or vindication. Removing the criminal from society protects society in two ways. Not only is the criminal prevented from offending again, but society (including the direct victims of the criminal’s actions) is saved from any other encounter with the criminal. Furthermore, in the case of crime that arouses strong public anger (such as violence towards children), the criminal may gain protection from revenge attacks (including violence from fellow prisoners), as well as from the temptation to re-offend.
Self- castration	In some societies, political power for the lowborn was only available to eunuchs. Monarchs delegated political power (which often implied free run of the palace) more readily to those without biological power. (This was because there was less risk of the minister fornicating the king’s wives and/or concealing dynastic ambitions of his own.) Therefore some ambitious men became eunuchs voluntarily. (Perhaps in some ways this is no worse than celibacy - but who am I to judge this?) This counts as doing away with the non-essential, in order to gain the essential. (There are certainly some points of view that would regard political power as more essential than sexual enjoyment.)
Ethnic cleansing	At the social level, removal is often a morally repugnant stratagem. It appears as total exclusion of and separation from the Other, in the form of genocide or forced migration. Conversely, threatened ethnic groups often themselves cluster into ghettos.
Cathar heresy	The Cathars were a mediæval sect who believed that the world was corrupt. They sought to avoid any act that might in any way favour the perpetuation of the world. Denounced as heresy by the religious establishment of the time, they were themselves eliminated. Furthermore, to compound this elimination, practically all traces of this heresy (and the Inquisition trials) were erased from recorded history, so that their ideas have vanished almost as effectively as their physical bodies. But not quite: determined historians have managed to piece together a reasonably plausible story. The story here is one of mutual rejection and attempted elimination: the Cathars reject but do not eliminate the world; the world rejects and successfully eliminates the Cathars. Eastern religions have often adopted this view, although rarely taking it to the same logical extreme as the Cathars. Buddhism, for example, can be seen as a form of the same belief structure.