Re: [ox-en] "Selbstentfaltung", "self-unfolding" or what?
- From: Graham Seaman <graham seul.org>
- Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 18:16:19 -0500 (EST)
On Sat, 22 Dec 2001, Stefan Merten wrote:
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Hi folks,
so what are we going to find a consensus on?
At the moment it seems to me, that "Selbstentfaltung" and
"self-unfolding" are the best candidates for a common term to use in
English when talking of what we mean by "Selbstentfaltung" in the
German part.
There has been the suggestion to take-over the meaning of
"self-development" which in general I sympathize with, but currently
the list doesn't use it that way and in English it seems even more in
danger of a misconception. Claude's use of "self-enfolding" I simply
do not understand :-( .
I think it is only spelling...
Graham: You felt rather strong about not using "self-unfolding". Do
you still feel this way?
When I first said this, it was before the explanation on the list of
what 'Selbstenfaltung' meant. Now I agree that 'self-development' is not
a good translation - it has too many other (irrelevant or wrong)
overtones. So self-unfolding it is, at least unless someone finds a
better phrase. I'm also not completely convinced that the idea is wholly
new - to me it has echos of Ivan Illich or Erich Fromm - and lo and behold
while I'm typing this I do a google on Fromm and come up with this
sentence:
'Humanistic radicalism is radical questioning guided by insight into the
dynamics of man's nature; and by concern for man's growth and full
unfolding.'
http://www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~ira/illich/texts/fromm_on_illich/fromm_on_illich.html
So 'unfolding' in this sense isn't new to English after all. But it
does lead to another question: why 'self'? In the discussion of the
term on this list (ie. en-) it seemd to be necessary to explain that it
didn't refer to purely isolated individuals, or was not possible for
isolated individuals, but was something social (since the 'self-' implied
not being social, which was also the problem with 'self-development').
(sorry if this reply is confusing - it self-unfolded as I was writing
it ;-) and my keyboard is currently broken (too much work with ^H to go
back and edit it all... ;-)
I think we should find a solution to this problem. I have no strong
feelings about one of the options. Perhaps as StefanMz pointed out
"self-unfolding" has the advantage of being easily to use as a verb
form.
Mit Freien Grüßen
Stefan
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