Friday, January 14, 2011

Repentance, Paranoia, Provisions

WAIT, I thought that pronoia looked familiar, METANOIA in Greek Orthodoxy is repentance. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metanoia 

According to Pronoia.net, Dr. Fred H.Goldner claims that he, writing at Queens College in October 1982, published a paper in SOCIAL PROBLEMS,V.30,N.1:82-91, in which he coined the term pronoia to describe a psychological affliction. He characterized pronoia as a mirror image of paranoia, which leads the sufferer to unrealistically believe that persons or entities (e.g. governments) conspire against them.

"Pronoia is the positive counterpart of paranoia. It is the delusion that others think well of one. Actions and the products of one's efforts are thought to be well received and praised by others. Mere acquaintances are thought to be close friends; politeness and the exchange of pleasantries are taken as expressions of deep attachment and the promise of future support. Pronoia appears rooted in the social complexity and cultural ambiguity of our lives: we have become increasingly dependent on the opinions of others based on uncertain criteria."

This quote is taken from Goldner's article listed above.

Long before the term pronoia was coined, J.D. Salinger referred to the concept in the novella, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters: "I'm a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy."


Very interesting! 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronoia_(psychology)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronoia

Very interesting words to explore! Thanks!

Alexius' grandson Manuel I Comnenus continued to grant land to the aristocrats, but also extended pronoiai to aristocratic officers in the army, in place of giving them a regular salary. Pronoiai developed into essentially a license to tax the citizens who lived within the boundaries of the grant (the paroikoi). Pronoiars (those who had been granted a pronoia) became something like tax collectors, who were allowed to keep some of the revenue they collected. This idea was not completely new; centuries before, Heraclius had reorganized the empire's land into military districts called Themata. Under this system, military officers (strategoi) ran each district and collected rent from the peasants who farmed the land. However, the paroikoi, under either the Thema or pronoia system, were not serfs as peasants were in the feudal system of western Europe. They owed no particular loyalty or service to the strategos or pronoiar, as in both cases the emperor was still the legal owner of the land. The pronoiar was most likely not even a native of the land he had been granted.

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