| Viktor Frankl (M.D. Ph.D) vs Eadon (Esq) |
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| quote:
"... happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself."
Viktor Frankl, Both a concentration camp prisoner and world-respected author and psychotherapist |
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Dear Honourable Sir and Friend,
You have claimed today that the statement above is FALSE. Your claim was supported by the following evidence:
a) Viktor Frankl made this claim based on his experiences in Concentration Camps. Those were extreme circumstances that do not apply to our lives. Therefore the statement does not apply to us
b) Based on your personal experiences You know that the above statement is incorrect.
Allow me, therefore to propose some counter-arguments to your reasoning:
a) Viktor Frankl made such statements nowdays, many years after the war.
b) Victor Frankl was renowned psychologist and neurologist (see: Logotherapy ), who studied the subject for ALL HIS LIFE (he spent 3 years in Concentration camps) and his statements are the conclusion from those studies and examining various scientific evidence and results of scientific experiments
c) It is true that Victor Frankl turned his Concentration Camp ordeal into psychological studies. It is also true that Concentration Camp environment is very extreme. However, a lot of scientific studies, studies on human nature and psychology, are performed in extreme environments, on rats, dogs, cats, rabbits and other animals. By claiming that if the environment and conditions in which experiment took place are extreme and unnatural then the conclusions drawn from such experiments are useless to us, you are claiming that a lot of scientific evidence, including Pavlov and his famous dogs, don't apply to us at all, "you cannot equate a dog with human" is your train of though here.
d) Your claim that your personal experiences are more objective and sound than scientific evidence gathered over the thousands of years, statistical data, examining thousands of people and personal cases, studying, analysing and dealing with practical cases, just prove to me that you don't believe or trust in science a bit and rely only on your intuition, raving emotions and Ego when you are challenged to view any subject in an objective and impartial manner.
e) You have also, albeit indirectly and probably unknowingly, made a very dangerous suggestion. You are denying Victor Frankl to be correct, only because he survived the Concentration Camp. You say that because he survived Concentration Camp, whatever he says does not apply to us. By that You are saying that, since Victor survived the Concentration Camp, he shouldn't be allowed to be a psychiatrist, therapist or have any view or voice on any matter. Are you suggesting that, if any experiences in our lives shaped us and made us wiser, then any views, thoughts and wisdom we gained as a result ought to be excluded, because those experiences and circumstances that made us wiser do not exist anymore? Because those experiences and circumstances were just temporary "one off" and therefore cannot be used for any "generalization"?
This reasoning is KRAZY my dear friend, PURE KRAZY and lacks any logic whatsoever. A lot of scientific discoveries were made on a spur of the moment, accidentally, and only then were supported by growing scientific evidence and study. And perhaps that is how You should view the subject of Victor Frankl, who discovered something important about human nature and happiness while survining the Concentration Camp, and then spent rest of his life studying and examining the subject, taking the wealth of ALL scientific evidence into consideration to reach conclusions he reached. This versus your personal few months worth of "experiments" which ignore any other scientific data or lack any scientific procedure and supervision.
Amen
This post was last edited by MadPole on 25-Feb-2006 at 11:07.
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RE: Viktor Frankl (M.D. Ph.D) vs Eadon (Esq)