Erik Engdahl:
Dedogmatisation
- my method in social sciences and psychology.

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There are numerous theories in social sciences and psychology. In life only trivialities (e.g. that we die within about 140 years) predictable. A theory about life actions, which has any kind of predictive power, is thus necessarily a theory not about life in general but about stereotypical, stiff-legged and non-flexible modes of life. Life becomes non-flexible as a consequence of having internalised problems of life as prejudices. A forthcoming appendix will give a description of the concept of prejudice in accordance with my favourite conceptual apparatus.

I claim that most of such theories are dogmatic in the sense that they contain hidden assumptions of internalisations. They create confusion between what is natural in life and which happens to be just statistically normal, i.e. majority misunderstandings. One of the consequences of such hidden assumptions is that the theories are more or less harmful, sweep under the carpet various forms of oppression, and serve ideologically as a pretext to escape from acting harmless and/or constructively. An action is harmless if other people out of this action cannot find pretexts to escape from acting harmlessly. Often there is a resistance against acting harmlessly and/or constructively as such actions tend to arouse memories of traumatised mental pain.

Theories about life actions (with some form of predictive power) are useless as guidance to harmless and/or constructive actions as they just deal with non-flexible living. Harmless and/or constructive actions originate from original wisdom, something that each one fully is in possession of. It is nevertheless most often as an emergency solution put into oblivion. The harmless and/or constructive use of dogmatic theories is an intellectual exercises in dedogmatisation.

It would be pointless to dissociate oneself from a theory that one has come to dislike. It would namely most probably reappear as a "ghost" in one or another from in that people tend to continue to unconsciously be adherent to the rejected theory and/or is opposite. The rightful place for theories about life actions is in the graveyard, in loving memory preserved. The route to the graveyard goes via dedogmatisation, not by rejection.

It is possible to formulate the dedogmatisation method in any conceptual apparatus. This is achieved by dedogmatisation of the conceptual apparatus that one wants to use instead. The only advantage of my own favourite conceptual apparatus, named the Unconditional Thinking of Everything(UTE), is that it is almost(*) undogmatic already from the beginning. Its determining disadvantage is that that it is (partially) new. It can be put into retirement, which would be an advantage, as soon as I have had time to use the dedogmatisation in full scale on some commonly known theory about life actions or ideology, e.g. liberalism, liberal conservatism or social democracy.

(*) Its only remaining infant malady is that I still claim that I sometimes master the dedogmatisation method.

It is, of course, only negative to have this totalitarian infant malady. I work consciously to eliminate this as well. It is unlikely that I completely could master this task, but substantial progress along this line ought to be possible, and some of it I may already have achieved.

If I were to succeed succeed with the aforementioned task, I would be good in using the method simultaneously as I never would claim that I master it. (Here appears the obvious question why I then currently claim that I sometimes master the method when I nevertheless know that this claim is an infant malady. The answer is that false modesty is not in my mode - strictly speaking it would be dishonest to sweep this infant malady under the carpet.)

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